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THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS 

By Warren E. Burton New edition Edited 
by Clifton Johnson With illustrations Cloth 
$1.25 

LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON 




Frontispiece 



THE 

DISTRICT SCHOOL 

AS IT WAS 



BY ONE WHO 
/ WENT TO IT 

, . 

EDITED BY 
CLIFTON JOHNSON 




LEE AND SHEPARD 

BOSTON MDCCCXCVII 
li 









Copyright, 1897, by LEE AND SHEPARD 



All Rights Reserved 



THE 

DISTRICT SCHOOL 

AS IT WAS 



Nortoooti $rrsg 
J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



j&-A~j&-jL _- 




Contents 

Chapter Page 

Introduction ..... v 

I. The Old School-house . . . I 

II. First Summer at School — Mary Smith 6 

III. The Spelling-book . . . .n 

IV. First Winter at School . . .15 
V. Second Summer — Mary Smith again . 20 

VI. Third Summer — Mehitabel Holt and 

Other Instructresses ... 24 
VII. Little Books presented the Last Day of 

the School ... . .28 

VIII. Grammar — Young Lady's Accidence 

— Murray — Parsing — Pope's Essay 34 
IX. The Particular Master — Various Meth- 
ods of Punishment . . .42 

X. How they used to read in the Old 

School-house in District No. V . 47 
XI. How they used to spell . . • 5 6 

XII. Mr. Spoutsound, the Speaking Master 

— the Exhibition ... 66 

XIII. Learning to write . . . 7 8 

XIV. Seventh Winter, but not Much about it 

— Eighth Winter — Mr. Johnson — 
Good Order, and but Little Punish- 
ing — a Story about Punishing — 
Ninth Winter . . . 87 



iv Contents 

Chapter Page 

XV. Going out — making Bows — Boys 
coming in — Girls going out and 
coming in . . . . .94 
XVI. Noon — Noise and Dinner — Sports 
at School — Coasting — Snow-ball- 
ing — a Certain Memorable Snow- 
ball Battle 101 

XVII. Arithmetic — Commencement — Prog- 
ress — Late Improvement in the Art 
of Teaching . . . .110 

XVIII. Augustus Starr, the Privateer who 
turned Pedagogue — his New Crew 
mutiny, and perform a Singular Ex- 
ploit 115 

XIX. Eleventh Winter — Mr. Silverson, our 
First Teacher from College — his 
Blunder at Meeting on the Sabbath — 
his Character as a Schoolmaster . 122 

XX. A College Master again — his Char- 
acter in School and out — our First 
Attempts at Composition — Brief 
Sketch of Another Teacher . . 130 

XXI. The Examination at the Closing of the 

School 13 8 

XXII. The Old School-house again — its Ap- 
pearance the Last Winter — why so 
long occupied — a New One at last . 147 

A Supplication to the People of the United 

States 155 

Pages from Old Spellers . . . .173 




Introduction 

THE New England schools of the early part 
of the century had a primitive pictur- 
esqueness that makes them seem of a much 
more remote past than they really are. The 
wood-pile in the yard, the open fire-place, the 
backless benches on which the smaller scholars 
sat, and the two terms — one in winter under a 
master, and one in summer ruled by a mistress 

have the flavor of pioneer days. In this 

seeming remoteness, coupled with its actual 
nearness, lies the chief reason for the charm 
that this period has for us. The intervening 
seventy or eighty years have destroyed every 
vestige of the old school sights and customs. 
We have only fragmentary reminiscences left. 
But the more the facts fade, the more they 
allure us. We are bringing the old furniture 
down from the garrets, and setting it forth in 
the places of honor in our best rooms ; and the 



vi Introduction 

same feeling that prompts this love for an an- 
cient chair or "chest of drawers" makes us 
prize the reminiscences of bygone times as age 
gives them an increasing rarity. 

Here, then, is " The District School As It 
Was." I know of no brighter, more graphic 
impressions of the school-days of the first quarter 
of the nineteenth century. The descriptions 
have an unusual degree of simplicity and charm, 
and at the same time are spiced with a sparkle 
of humor that makes them good reading, apart 
from any historic attraction. 

The book was first published in Boston, in 
1833, where it was received "with unqualified 
favor." A little later it was brought out in 
New York, with equal success, and a few years 
afterward a London edition was issued as giving 
a faithful description of one of the institutions 
of New England. 

In 1852 "The District School," with several 
lesser works by the same writer, was published 
in a twelvemo volume of 364 pages, " to be dis- 
posed of to subscribers for the benefit of the 
Author." The longest of the additional writ- 
ings had been previously published as a separate 
book entitled " The Scenery Shower." But it 
was found that to the mystified mind of the 
average reader this title was understood to mean 



Introduction vii 

" The Scenery Rainfall," and a change was 
made in the reissue to " Scenery Showing." 
Aside from " The District School " and the in- 
genious " Supplication to the People of the 
United States," which makes a supplementary 
chapter in the present volume, the author's works 
in this twelvemo are mild, contemplative essays 
of no particular value. The idea of the "Sup- 
plication," just referred to, is so odd and the list 
of mispronounced words is so characteristic of 
the country folk of fifty or seventy-five years 
ago, that it is well worth preserving. These 
words can be heard even now among the old 
people of out-of-the-way villages, and they re- 
peat them with the same nasal twang that was 
familiar to the ears of our grandparents. 

The author of "The District School," Rev. 
Warren Burton, was born in Wilton, N. H., in 
1800, and died at Salem, Mass., in 1866. The 
school he describes is the one he himself went 
to as a youth in his native town. His attend- 
ance began at the age of three-and-one-half in 
the summer of 1804 and ended with the winter 
term of 181 7-18 18, when he had arrived at the 
dignity of being one of the big boys on the back 
seat. Sixteen years later his book was published, 
describing the school "as it was," and the reader 
is given to understand that the shortcomings he 



viii Introduction 

pictured were no longer characteristic, so far as 
New England was concerned. It gives an odd 
impression to see the school viewed across this 
narrow space, as if in contrast with the enlight- 
enment of 1833 and the improvements by then 
accomplished, the teaching methods and school 
environment of the earlier period were a part 
of the dark ages. 

After he left the district school Mr. Burton 
prepared himself for Harvard College, where he 
graduated in 1821. Then followed several 
years of teaching. Next we find him taking 
the Harvard Theological Course, and in 1828 
he was ordained as a Unitarian minister at East 
Cambridge. As a preacher he served in Wash- 
ington, Keene and Nashua in New Hampshire, 
and in Hingham, Waltham, Worcester, and 
Boston in Massachusetts. But as time went 
on he preached less and devoted himself more 
and more to objects of reform. He was a fre- 
quent contributor to periodicals, and in both 
writing and lecturing he labored to promote 
home culture and to improve the conditions of 
the schools. Friends speak of him as being 
rather tall, with a most benevolent countenance 
and gentle manners. His published works in- 
clude several volumes on religion and education, 
and, in lighter vein, these recollections of his 



Introduction ix 

school-days and a little book printed anony- 
mously entitled " The Village Choir " — a 
humorous description of the ways and manners, 
quarrels and jealousies of an old-time choir in a 
country church. 

The text in the present edition of " The 
District School" is practically what it was in 
the original. Nothing is changed, and the edit- 
ing consists in a slight condensation, effected 
by cutting out unnecessary asides and digres- 
sions. 

With the exception of a few special drawings, 
the illustrations are cuts from old spellers and 
other books of the period. I have a number of 
these books before me as I write. The arith- 
metics, grammars, and readers are sober volumes 
bound in full sheep. The stiff bindings are 
warped and battered now, the pages yellow and 
spotty, and they have a musty odor of age and 
of long years spent in dusty garret corners. 

The old spellers are not much gayer. They 
have thin sides of light, splintery wood pasted 
over with dull gray paper. But inside there is 
a good deal of variety, — words from one syllable 
up to ponderous sixes, wise maxims, religious 
instruction, and many little stories with never- 
failing morals under their sugar coats. Lastly, 
there is a sprinkling of curious pictures. Both 



Introduction 



pictures and text have an unconscious humor 
that would put a professional wit to shame. 
No one by forethought could make more quaint 
distortions of fact and human nature. It gives 
the same feeling as if one were looking out on 
the world through the flaws of an old-time 
window-pane. 

In the body of the book are various fac- 
simile reproductions from the old spellers ; but 
in closing my introduction I would like to re- 
print a few more bits here. For instance, take 
this, which is from a speller lesson for beginners. 

Pigs can dig in the side of a hill. 

A pig drinks swill. 

Let him drink his fill of swill and milk. 

The lesson following the above is this: — 

Ships sail on the sea. 

A ship will hold ten nags, ten hens, for-ty 
cats and pigs, six beds, six-ty men, and much 
more. 

A dozen pages farther on we come to some- 
thing more serious — the " Story of a Bad Boy." 

Jack lov-ed to play more than he lov-ed to 
go to school. So he stop-ped by the way to 
slide on a pond. He had not slid long when 
he slipt into a hole cut in the ice. There he 



Introduction xi 

was left to hang by his hands on the cold 
ice, and his feet and legs in the cold water. O 
how sor-ry that he ran a-way from school ! 
How glad and yet how sha-med, when his pa 
came and took him home in his arms ! 

Then here is a lesson designed to teach the 
child in an agreeable way something of natural 
history. 

Of Sheep, Horses, and Birds. 

What has Charles got to keep him warm ? 

Charles has got a frock and warm petticoats. 

And what have the poor sheep got ; have 
they petticoats ? 

The sheep have got wool, thick, warm wool. 
Feel it. Oh, it is very comfortable ! That is 
their clothing. 

And what have horses got ? 

Horses have got long hair; and cows have 
hair. 

And what have pigs got ? 

Pigs have got bristles and hair. 

And what have birds got ? 

Birds have got feathers ; soft, clean, shining 
feathers. 

Birds build nests in trees ; that is their house. 

Can you climb a tree ? 



xii Introduction 

No. I am afraid I should fall and break my 
bones. 

Ask puss to teach you ; she can climb. See 
how fast she climbs ! She is at the top. She 
wants to catch birds. Pray, puss, do not take 
the little birds that sing so merrily ! She has 
got a sparrow in her mouth. She has eaten it 
all up. No, here are two or three feathers on 
the ground, all bloody. Poor sparrow ! 

Finally, here are a few sentences from the 
latter part of the spellers, apparently put in to fill 
a blank space at the bottom of a page. 

A wise child will not learn to chew tobacco, 
smoke the pipe, or cigars, or take snuff", for the 
four following reasons : — 

They are dirty habits ; useless habits ; costly 
habits ; slavish habits. It is pitiful to see a 
strong, healthy looking man a slave to a quid 
of tobacco, or a puff" of smoke ; or a beautiful, 
sensible lady stuffed up or bedaubed with snufF. 

Clifton Johnson, 
hadley, mass. 



The District School As It Was 



Chapter I 
The Old School-house 

THE Old School-house, how distinctly it 
rises to existence anew before the eye 
of my mind ! It is now no more ; and those 
of similar construction are passing away, never 
to be patterned again. It may be well, there- 
fore, to describe the edifice wherein and where- 
about occurred many of the scenes about to be 
recorded. I would have future generations 
acquainted with the accommodations, or rather 
dis-accommodations, of their predecessors. 

The Old School-house, in District No. 5, 
stood on the top of a very high hill, on the 
north side of what was called the County road. 
The house of Capt. Clark, about ten rods off, 
was the only human dwelling within a quarter 
of a mile. The reason why this seminary of 
letters was perched so high in the air, and so far 



The District School 



from the homes of those who resorted to it, was 
this : — Here was the center of the district, as 
near as surveyor's chain could designate. The 
people east would not permit the building to be 
carried one rod further west, and those of the 
opposite quarter were as obstinate on their side. 

The edifice was set half in Capt. Clark's field, 
and half in the road. The wood-pile lay in the 
corner made by the east end and the stone wall. 
The best roof it ever had over it was the change- 
ful sky, which was a little too leaky to keep the 
fuel at all times fit for combustion, without a 
great deal of puffing and smoke. The door- 
step was a broad unhewn rock, brought from 
the neighboring pasture. It had not a flat and 
even surface, but was considerably sloping from 
the door to the road ; so that, in icy times, the 
scholars, in passing out, used to snatch from the 
scant declivity the transitory pleasure of a slide. 
But look out for a slip-up, ye careless ; for many 
a time have I seen an urchin's head where his 
feet were but a second before. And once, the 
most lofty and perpendicular pedagogue I ever 
knew, became suddenly horizontalized in his 
egress. 

But we have lingered round this door-step 
long enough. Before we cross it, however, let 
us just glance at the outer side of the structure. 



As It Was 



It was never painted by man ; but the clouds of 
many years had stained it with their own dark 
hue. The nails were starting from their fast- 
ness, and fellow-clapboards were becoming less 
closely and warmly intimate. There were six 
windows, which here and there stopped and dis- 
torted the passage of light by fractures, patches, 
and seams of putty. There were shutters of 
board, like those of a store, which were of no 
kind of use, excepting to keep the windows 
from harm in vacations, when they were the 
least liable to harm. They might have been con- 
venient screens against the summer sun, were it 
not that their shade was inconvenient darkness. 
Some of these, from loss of buttons, were fas- 
tened back by poles, which were occasionally 
thrown down in the heedlessness of play, and 
not replaced till repeated slams had broken a 
pane of glass, or the patience of the teacher. 
To crown this description of externals, I must 
say a word about the roof. The shingles had 
been battered apart by a thousand rains; and, 
excepting where the most defective had been 
exchanged for new ones, they were dingy with 
the mold and moss of time. The bricks of 
the chimney-top were losing their cement, and 
looked as if some high wind might hurl them 
from their smoky vocation. 



The District School 



We will now go inside. First, there is an 
entry which the district were sometimes provi- 
dent enough to store with dry pine wood, as an 
antagonist to the greenness and wetness of the 
other fuel. A door on the left admits us to the 
school-room. Here is a space about twenty 
feet long and ten wide, the reading and spelling 
parade. At the south end of it, at the left as 
you enter, was one seat and writing bench, 
making a right angle with the rest of the seats. 
This was occupied in the winter by two of the 
oldest males in the school. At the opposite 
end was the magisterial desk, raised upon a 
platform a foot from the floor. The fire-place 
was on the right, half way between the door of 
entrance and another door leading into a dark 
closet, where the girls put their outside gar- 
ments and their dinner baskets. This also 
served as a fearful dungeon for the immuring 
of offenders. Directly opposite the fire-place 
was an aisle, two feet and a half wide, running 
up an inclined floor to the opposite side of the 
room. On each side of this were five or six 
long seats and writing benches, for the accom- 
modation of the school at their studies. In 
front of these, next to the spelling floor, were 
low, narrow seats for abecedarians and others 
near that rank. In general, the older the 



As It Was 5 

scholar, the further from the front was his 
location. The windows behind the back seat 
were so low that the traveler could generally 
catch the stealthy glance of curiosity as he 
passed. Such was the Old School-house at the 
time I first entered it. Its subsequent condi- 
tion and many other inconveniences will be 
noticed hereafter. 




The District School 



Chapter II 
First Summer at School — Mary Smith 

I WAS three years and a half old when I first 
entered the Old School-house as an abece- 
darian. I ought, perhaps, to have set foot on 
the first step of learning's ladder before this; 
but I had no elder brother or sister to lead me 
to school, a mile off; and it never occurred to 
my good parents, that they could teach me even 
the alphabet ; or, perhaps, they could not afford 
the time, or muster the patience for the tedious 
process. I had, however, learned the name of 
capital A, because it stood at the head of the 
column, and was the similitude of a harrow 
frame ; of O, also, from its resemblance to a 
hoop. Its sonorous name, moreover, was a 
frequent passenger through my mouth, after I 
had begun to articulate ; its ample sound being 
the most natural medium by which man, born 
unto trouble, signifies the pains of his lot. X, 
too, was familiar, as it seemed so like the end 
of the old saw-horse that stood in the wood- 
shed. Further than this my alphabetical lore 



As It Was 



did not extend, according to present recollec- 
tion. 

I shall never forget my first day of scholar- 
ship, as it was the most important era which 
had yet occurred to my experience. Behold 
me on the eventful morning of the first Mon- 
day in June, arrayed in my new jacket and 
trowsers, into which my importance had been 
shoved for the first time in my life. This 
change in my costume had been deferred till 
this day, that I might be " all nice and clean 
to go to school." Then my Sunday hat of 
coarse and hard sheep's wool adorned my head 
for the first time in common week-day use ; 
for my other had been crushed, torn, and soiled 
out of the seemliness, and almost out of the 
form, of a hat. My little new basket, too, 
bought expressly for the purpose, was laden 
with 'lection-cake and cheese for my dinner, 
and slung upon my arm. An old Perry's 
spelling-book, that our boy Ben used at the 
winter school, completed my equipment. 

Mary Smith was my first teacher, and the 
dearest to my heart I ever had. She was a 
niece of Mrs. Carter, who lived in the nearest 
house on the way to school. She had visited 
her aunt the winter before ; and her uncle, 
being chosen committee for the school at the 



8 The District School 

town-meeting in the spring, sent immediately to 
her home in Connecticut, and engaged her to 
teach the summer school. During the few days 
she spent at his house, she had shown herself 
peculiarly qualified to interest, and to gain the 
love of children. Some of the neighbors, too, 
who had dropped in while she was there, were 
much pleased with her appearance. She had 
taught one season in her native State ; and that 
she succeeded well, Mr. Carter could not doubt. 
He preferred her, therefore, to hundreds near 
by ; and for once the partiality of the relative 
proved profitable to the district. 

Now Mary Smith was to board at her uncle's. 
This was deemed a fortunate circumstance on 
my account, as she would take care of me on 
the way, which was needful to my inexperi- 
enced childhood. 

She used to lead me to school by the hand, 
while John and Sarah Carter gamboled on, 
unless I chose to gambol with them ; but the 
first day, at least, I kept by her side. All her 
demeanor toward me, and indeed toward us all, 
was of a piece with her first introduction. She 
called me to her to read, not with a look and 
voice as if she were doing a duty she disliked, 
and was determined I should do mine too, like 
it or not, as is often the manner of teachers j 



As It Was 



but with a cheerful smile, as if she were at a 
pastime. 

My first business was to master the ABC, 
and no small achievement it was ; for many a 
little learner waddles to school through the sum- 
mer, and wallows to the same through the win- 
ter, before he accomplishes it, if he happens to 
be taught in the manner of former times. This 
might have been my lot, had it not been for 
Mary Smith. Few of the better methods of 
teaching, which now make the road to know- 
ledge so much more easy and pleasant, had then 
found their way out of, or into, the brain of the 
pedagogical vocation. Mary went on in the old 
way indeed ; but the whole exercise was done 
with such sweetness on her part, that the dila- 
tory and usually unpleasant task was to me a 
pleasure, and by the close of that summer, the 
alphabet was securely my own. 

That hardest of all tasks, sitting becomingly 
still, was rendered easier by her goodness. 
When I grew restless, and turned from side to 
side, and changed from posture to posture, in 
search of relief from my uncomfortableness, she 
spoke words of sympathy rather than reproof. 
Thus I was won to be as quiet as I could. 
When I grew drowsy, and needed but a com- 
fortable position to drop into sleep and forget- 



IO 



The District School 



fulness of the weary hours, she would gently 
lay me at length on my seat, and leave me just 
falling to slumber, with her sweet smile the last 
thing beheld or remembered. 

Thus wore away my first summer at the 
district school. As I look back on it, faintly 
traced on memory, it seems like a beautiful 
dream, the images of which are all softness 
and peace. I recollect that, when the last day 
came, it was not one of light-hearted joy — it 
was one of sadness, and it closed in tears. I 
was now obliged to stay at home in solitude, 
for the want of playmates, and in weariness of 
the passing time, for the want of something 
to do ; as there was no particular pleasure in 
saying A B C all alone, with no Mary Smith's 
voice and looks for an accompaniment. 




As It Was ii 



Chapter III 
The Spelling-book 

AS the spelling-book was the first manual of 
instruction used in school, and kept in our 
hands for many years, I think it worthy of a 
separate chapter in these annals of the times 
that are past. The spelling-book used in our 
school from time immemorial — immemorial at 
least to the generation of learners to which I 
belonged — was thus entitled: "The Only 
Sure Guide to the English Tongue, by Wil- 
liam Perry, Lecturer of the English Language 
in the Academy of Edinburgh, and author of 
several valuable school-books. " 

In the first place, there was a frontispiece. 
This frontispiece consisted of two parts. In 
the upper division, there was the representation 
of a tree laden with fruit of the largest descrip- 
tion. It was intended, I presume, as a striking 
and alluring emblem of the general subject, the 
particular branches, and the rich fruits of edu- 
cation. But the figurative meaning was above 
my apprehension, and no one took the trouble 



12 The District School 

to explain it. I supposed it nothing but the 
picture of a luxuriant apple-tree ; and it always 
made me think of that good tree in my father's 
orchard, so dear to my palate, — the pumpkin- 
sweeting. 

There ran a ladder from the ground up 
among the branches, which was designed to 
represent the ladder of learning. Little boys 
were ascending this in pursuit of the fruit that 
hung there so temptingly. Others were already 
up in the tree, plucking the apples directly from 
their stems ; while others were on the ground, 
picking up those that had dropped in their ripe- 
ness. At the very top of the tree, with his 
head reared above all fruit or foliage, was a 
bare-headed lad with a book in his hand, which 
he seemed intently studying. I supposed that 
he was a boy that loved his book better than 
apples, as all good boys should, — one who in 
very childhood had trodden temptation under 
foot. But, indeed, it was only a boy who was 
gathering fruit from the topmost boughs, accord- 
ing to the figurative meaning, as the others 
were from those lower down. Or rather, as 
he was portrayed, he seemed like one who had 
culled the fairest and highest growing apples, 
and was trying to learn from a book where 
he should find a fresh and loftier tree, upon 



As It Was [3 

which he might climb to a richer repast and 
a nobler distinction. 

This picture used to retain my eye longer 
than any other in the book. It was probably 
more agreeable on account of the other part ot 
the frontispiece below it. This was the repre- 
sentation of a school at their studies, with the 
master at his desk. He was pictured as an 
elderly man, with an immense wig enveloping 
his head and bagging about his neck, and with 
a face that had an expression of perplexity at 
a sentence in parsing, or a sum in arithmetic, 
and a frown at the playful urchins in the dis- 
tant seats. There could not have been a more 
capital device by which the pleasures of a free 
range and delicious eating, both so dear to the 
youns might be contrasted with stupefying con- 
finement and longing palates in the presence ot 
crabbed authority. The subsequent contents I 
was going on to describe in detail; but on sec- 
ond thought I forbear, for fear that the descrip- 
tion might be as tedious to my readers as the 
study of them was to me. Suffice it to say, 
there was talk about vowels and consonants, 
diphthongs and triphthongs, monosyllables and 
polysyllables, orthography and punctuation, and 
even about geography, all which was about as 
intelligible to us, who were obliged to commit 



14 The District School 

it to memory year after year, as the fee-faw- 
fum uttered by the giant in one of our story- 
books. 

Perry's spelling-book, as it was in those days, 
at least, is now out of use. It is nowhere to 
be found except in fragments in some dark 
corner of a country cupboard or garret. All 
vestiges of it will soon disappear forever. 
What will the rising generations do, into what 
wilds of barbarism will they wander, into what 
pits of ignorance fall, without the aid of the 
Only Sure Guide to the English tongue ? 




As It Was x 5 



H 



Chapter IV 
First Winter at School 

OW I longed for the winter school to 
begin, to which I looked forward as a 
relief from my do-nothing days, and as a re- 
newal, in part at least, of the soft and glowing 
pleasures of the past summer ! But the school- 
master, the thought of him was a fearful look- 
ing-for of frowns and ferulings. Had I not 
heard our Ben tell of the direful punishments 
of the winter school ; of the tingling hand, 
black and blue with twenty strokes, and not 
to be closed for a fortnight from soreness ? Did 
not the minister and the schoolmaster of the pre- 
ceding winter visit together at our house, one 
evening, and did I not think the schoolmaster 
far the more awful man of the two ? The min- 
ister took me in his lap, gave me a kiss, and 
told me about his own little Charley at home, 
whom I must come to see •, and he set me 
down with the impression that he was not half 
so terrible as I had thought him. But the 
schoolmaster condescended to no words with 



1 6 The District School 

me. He was as stiff and unstooping as the 
long kitchen fire-shovel, and as solemn of face 
as a cloudy fast-day. 

The winter at length came, and the first day 
of the school was fixed and made known, and 
the longed-for morning finally arrived. With 
hoping, yet fearing heart, I was led by Ben to 
school. But my fears respecting the teacher 
were not realized that winter. He had noth- 
ing particularly remarkable about him to my 
little mind. He had his hands too full of the 
great things of the great scholars to take much 
notice of me, excepting to hear me read my 
Abs four times a day. This exercise he went 
through like a great machine, and I like a little 
one ; so monotonous was the humdrum and 
regular the recurrence of ab, eb, ib, ob, nb, &c, 
from day to day, and week to week. To recur 
to the metaphor of a ladder by which progress 
in learning is so often illustrated, I was all 
summer on the lowest round, as it were, lifting 
first one foot and then the other, still putting it 
down in the same place, without going any 
higher ; and all winter, while at school, I was 
as wearily tap-tapping it on the second step. 

There was one circumstance, however, in 
the daily routine, which was a matter of some 
little excitement and pleasure. I was put into 



As It Was 17 

a class. Truly my littleness, feelingly, if not 
actually and visibly, enlarged itself, when I was 
called out with Sam Allen, Henry Green, and 
Susan Clark, to take our stand on the floor as 
the sixth class. I marched up with the tread 
of a soldier; and, thinks I, " Who has a better 
right to be at the head than myself ? " so the 
head I took, as stiff and as straight as a cob. 
My voice, too, if it lost none of its treble, was 
pitched a key louder, as a — b ab rang through 
the realm. And when we had finished, I 
looked up among the large scholars, as I strutted 
to my seat, with the thought, " I am almost as 
big as you now," puffing out my tiny soul. 
Now, moreover, I held the book in my own 
hand, and kept the place with my own finger, 
instead of standing like a very little boy, with 
my hands at my side, following with my eye 
the point of the mistress's scissors. 

There was one terror at this winter school 
which I must not omit in this chronicle of my 
childhood. It arose from the circumstance of 
meeting so many faces which I had never seen 
before, or at least had never seen crowded 
together in one body. All the great boys and 
girls, who had been kept at home during the 
summer, now left axes and shovels, needles and 
spinning wheels, and poured into the winter 
c 



1 8 The District School 

school. There they sat, side by side, head after 
head, row above row. For this I did not care ; 
but every time the master spoke to me for any 
little misdemeanor, it seemed as if all turned 
their eyes on my timid self, and I felt petrified 
by the gaze. But this simultaneous and con- 
centrated eye-shot was the most distressing 
when I happened late, and was obliged to go in 
after the school were all seated in front of my 
advance. 

The severest duty I was ever called to per- 
form was sitting on that little front seat, at my 
first winter school. My lesson in the Abs con- 
veyed no ideas, excited no interest, and, of 
course, occupied but very little of my time. 
There was nothing before me on which to lean 
my head, or lay my arms, but my own knees. 
I could not lie down to drowse, as in summer, 
for want of room on the crowded seat. How 
my limbs ached for the freedom and activity of 
play ! It sometimes seemed as if a drubbing 
from the master, or a kick across the school- 
house, would have been a pleasant relief. 

But these bonds upon my limbs were not all. 
I had trials by fire in addition. Every cold 
forenoon, the old fire-place, wide and deep, was 
kept a roaring furnace of flame, for the benefit 
of blue noses, chattering jaws, and aching toes, 



As It Was 19 

in the more distant regions. The end of my 
seat, just opposite the chimney, was oozy with 
melted pitch, and sometimes almost smoked 
with combustion. Judge, then, of what living 
flesh had to bear. It was a toil to exist. I 
truly ate the bread of instruction, or rather 
nibbled at the crust of it, in the sweat of my 
face. 

But the pleasures and the pains of this sea- 
son at school did not continue long. After a 
few weeks, the storms and drifts of midwinter 
kept me mostly at home. Henry Allen was in 
the same predicament. As for Susan Clark, 
she did not go at all after the first three or four 
days. In consequence of the sudden change 
from roasting within doors to freezing without, 
she took a violent cold, and was sick all winter. 




20 The District School 



Chapter V 
Second Summer — Mary Smith Again 

THE next summer, Mary Smith was the mis- 
tress again. She gave such admirable satis- 
faction, that there was but one unanimous wish 
that she should be re-engaged. Unanimous, I 
said, but it was not quite so ; for Capt. Clark, 
who lived close by the school-house, preferred 
somebody else, no matter whom, fit or not fit, 
who should board with him, as the teachers 
usually did. But Mary would board with her 
Aunt Carter, as before. Then Mr. Patch's 
family grumbled not a little, and tried to find 
fault ; for they wanted their Polly should keep 
the school and board at home, and help her 
mother night and morning, and save the pay 
for the board to boot. Otherwise Polly must 
go into a distant district, to less advantage to 
the family purse. Mrs. Patch was heard to 
guess that " Polly could keep as good a school 
as anybody else. Her education had cost 
enough anyhow. She had been to our school 
summer after summer, and winter after winter, 



As It Was « 

ever since she was a little gal, and had then 
been to the 'cademy three months besides. She 
had moreover taught three summers already, 
and was twenty-one; whereas Mary Smith had 
taught but two, and was only nineteen." But 
the committee had not such confidence in the 
experienced Polly's qualifications. All who had 
been to school with her knew that her head 
was dough, if ever head was. And all who 
had observed her school-keeping career (she 
never kept but once in the same place) pretty 
soon came to the same conclusion, notwith- 
standing her loaf of brains had been three 
months in that intellectual oven called by her 
mother the 'cademy. 

So Mary Smith kept the school, and I had 
another delightful summer under her care and 
instruction. I was four years and a half old 
now, and had grown an inch. I was no tiny, 
whining, half-scared baby, as in the first sum- 
mer. No, indeed; I had been to the winter 
school, had read in a class, and had stood up 
at the fire with the great boys, had seen a 
snow-ball fight, and had been accidentally hit 
once by the icy missile of big-fisted Joe Swagger. 
I looked down upon two or three fresh, slob- 
bering abecedarians with a pride of superiority, 
greater perhaps than I ever felt again. We 



22 The District School 



read not in ab, eb, &c, but in words that meant 
something ; and, before the close of the sum- 
mer, in what were called the " Reading Les- 
sons," that is, little words arranged in little 
sentences. 

Mary was the same sweet angel this season 
as the last. She was forced to caution us 
younglings pretty often ; yet a caution from 
her was as effectual as would be a frown, and 
indeed a blow, from many others. At least, so 
it was with me. She used to resort to various 
severities with the refractory and idle, and in 
one instance she used the ferule ; but we all 
knew, and the culprit knew, that it was well 
deserved. 

At the close of the school, there was a deeper 
sadness in our hearts than on the last summer's 
closing day. She had told us that she should 
never be our teacher again, — should probably 
never meet many of us again in this world. 
She gave us much parting advice about loving 
and obeying God, and loving and doing good 
to everybody. She shed tears as she talked to 
us, and when we were dismissed, the customary 
and giddy laugh was not heard. Many were 
sobbing with grief, and even the least sensitive 
were softened and subdued to an unusual quiet- 
ness. 



As It Was 23 



The last time I ever saw Mary was Sunday 
evening, on my way home from meeting. As 
we passed Mr. Carter's, she came out to the 
chaise where I sat between my parents, to bid 
us good-by. The next morning she left for 
her native town ; and before another summer, 
she was married. As Mr. Carter soon moved 
from our neighborhood, the dear instructress 
never visited it again. 




24 The District School 



Chapter VI 

Third Summer — Mehitabel Holt and 
Other Instructresses 

THIS summer, a person named Mehitabel 
Holt was our teacher. It was with eager 
delight that I set out for school on the first 
morning. I longed for the companionship and 
the sports of school. I had heard nothing about 
the mistress, excepting that she was an experi- 
enced and approved one. On my way, the 
image of something like Mary Smith arose to 
my imagination ; a young lady with pleasant 
face and voice, and a winning gentleness of 
manner. This was natural ; for Mary was the 
only mistress I had ever been to, and in fact 
the only one I had ever seen, who made any 
impression on my mind in her school-keeping 
capacity. What, then, was my surprise when 
my eyes first fell on Mehitabel Holt ! I shall 
not describe how nature had made her, or time 
had altered her. She had been well-looking, 
indeed rather beautiful once, I have heard ; but, 
if so, the acidity of her temper had diffused 



As It Was 



2 5 



itself through, and lamentably corroded this 
valued gift of nature. 

She kept order; for her punishments were 
horrible, especially to us little ones. She dun- 
geoned us in that windowless closet just for a 
whisper. She tied us to her chair-post for an 
hour, because sportive nature tempted our fin- 
gers and toes into something like play. If we 
were restless on our seats, wearied of our 
posture, fretted by the heat, or sick of the 
unintelligible lesson, a twist of the ear, or a 
snap on the head from her thimbled finger, 
reminded us that sitting perfectly still was the 
most important virtue of a little boy in school. 
Our forenoon and afternoon recess was allowed 
to be five minutes only ; and, even during that 
time, our voices must not rise above the tone 
of quiet conversation. That delightful exercise 
of juvenile lungs, hallooing, was a capital crime. 
Our noonings, in which we used formerly to 
rejoice in the utmost freedom of legs and lungs, 
were now like the noonings of the Sabbath, in 
the restraints imposed upon us. As Mehitabel 
boarded at Capt. Clark's, any ranging in the 
fields, or raising of the voice, was easily detected 
by her watchful senses. 

As the prevalent idea in those days respecting 
a good school was, that there should be no more 



26 The District School 

sound and motion than was absolutely neces- 
sary, Mehitabel was, on the whole, popular with 
the parents. She kept us still, and forced us to 
get our lessons; and that was something un- 
common in a mistress. So she was employed 
the next summer to keep our childhood in 
bondage. Had her strict rules been enforced 
by anything resembling Mary Smith's sweet 
and sympathetic disposition and manners, they 
would have been endurable. But, as it was, 
our schooling those two summers was a pain 
to the body, a weariness to the mind, and a 
disgust to the heart. 

I shall not devote a separate chapter to all 
my summer teachers. What more I may have 
to say of them I shall put into this. They 
were none of them like Mehitabel in severity, 
nor all of them equal to her in usefulness, and 
none of them equal in any respect to Mary 
Smith. Some were very young, scarcely six- 
teen, and as unfit to manage that " harp of a 
thousand strings," the human mind, as is the 
unskilled and changeful wind to manage any 
musical instrument by which science and taste 
delight the ear. Some kept tolerable order; 
others made the attempt, but did not succeed ; 
others did not even make the attempt. All 
would doubtless have done better, had they 



As It Was 27 

been properly educated and disciplined them- 
selves. 

After I was ten years old, I ceased to attend 
the summer school except in foul weather, as 
in fair I was wanted at home on the farm. 
These scattering days, I and others of nearly 
the same age were sent to school by our parents, 
in hopes that v/e should get at least a snatch of 
knowledge. But this rainy-day schooling was 
nothing but vanity to us, and vexation of spirit 
to the mistress. We could read and spell 
better than the younger and regular scholars, 
and were puffed up with our own superiority. 
We showed our contempt for the mistress and 
her orders, by doing mischief ourselves, and 
leading others into temptation. 

If she had the boldness to apply the ferule, 
we laughed in her face, unless her blows were 
laid on with something like masculine strength. 
In case of such severity, we waited for our 
revenge till the close of the school for the day, 
when we took the liberty to let saucy words 
reach her ear, especially if the next day was 
likely to be fair, and we of course were not to 
re-appear in her realm till foul weather again. 



28 The District School 



Chapter VII 

Little Books presented the Last Day of 
the School 

THERE was one circumstance connected 
with the history of summer schools of so 
great importance to little folks, that it must not 
be omitted. It was this. The mistress felt 
obliged to give little books to all her pupils on 
the closing day of her school. Otherwise she 
would be thought stingy, and half the good she 
had done during the summer would be canceled 
by the omission of the expected donations. If 
she had the least generosity, or hoped to be 
remembered with any respect and affection, she 
must devote a week's wages, and perhaps more, 
to the purchase of these little toy-books. My 
first present, of course, was from Mary Smith. 
It was not a little book the first summer, but it 
was something that pleased me more. 

The last day of the school had arrived. All 
were sad that it was now to finish. My only 
solace was that I should now have a little book, 
for I was not unmoved in the general expecta- 



As It Was 29 

tion that prevailed. After the reading and 
spelling, and all the usual exercises of the 
school, were over, Mary took from her desk a 
pile of the glittering little things we were look- 
ing for. What beautiful covers, — red, yellow, 
blue, green ! All eyes were now centered on 
the outspread treasures. Admiration and ex- 
pectation were depicted on every face. Pleas- 
ure glowed in every heart ; for the worst, as 
well as the best, calculated with certainty on a 
present. The scholars were called out one by 
one to receive the dazzling gifts, beginning at 
the oldest. I, being an abecedarian, must wait 
till the last ; but as I knew that my turn would 
surely come in due order, I was tolerably 
patient. But what was my disappointment, 
my exceeding bitterness of grief, when the last 
book on Mary's lap was given away, and my 
name not yet called ! Every one present had 
received, except myself and two others of the 
ABC rank. I felt the tears starting to my 
eyes ; my lips were drawn to their closest 
pucker to hold in my emotions from audible 
outcry. I heard my fellow-sufferer at my side 
draw long and heavy breaths, the usual prelimi- 
naries to the bursting out of grief. This feel- 
ing, however, was but momentary ; for Mary 
immediately said, " Charles and Henry and 



30 The District School 

Susan, you may now all come to me together" : 
at the same time her hand was put into her 
work-bag. We were at her side in an instant, 
and in that time she held in her hand — what ? 
Not three little picture-books, but what was to 
us a surprising novelty, viz., three little birds 
wrought from sugar by the confectioner's art. 
I had never seen or heard or dreamed of such a 
thing. What a revulsion of delighted feeling 
now swelled my little bosom ! " If I should 
give you books," said Mary, " you could not 
read them at present ; so I have got for you 
what you will like better perhaps, and there 
will be time enough for you to have books, 
when you shall be able to read them. So, take 
these little birds, and see how long you can 
keep them." We were perfectly satisfied, and 
even felt ourselves distinguished above the rest. 
My bird was more to me than all the songsters 
in the air, although it could not fly, or sing, or 
open its mouth. I kept it for years, until by 
accident it was crushed to pieces, and was no 
longer a bird. 

But Susan Clark — I was provoked at her. 
Her bird was nothing to her but a piece of pep- 
perminted sugar, and not a keepsake from Mary 
Smith. She had not left the school-house 
before she had nibbled off its bill. 



As It Was 31 

The next summer, my present was the 
" Death and Burial of Cock Robin." I could 
then do something more than look at the 
pictures. I could read the tragic history 
which was told in verse below the pictured 
representations of the mournful drama. How 
I used to gaze and wonder at what I saw in 
that little book ! Could it be that all this really 
took place ; that the sparrow really did do the 
murderous deed with his bow and his arrow ? 
I never knew before that birds had such things. 
Then there was the fish with his dish, the rook 
with his book, the owl with his shovel, &c. Yet, 
if it were not all true, why should it be so pic- 
tured and related in the book? I had the impres- 
sion that everything that was printed in a book 
was surely true ; and as no one thought to 
explain to me the nature of a fable, I went on 
puzzled and wondering, till progressive reason 
at length divined its meaning. But Cock 
Robin, with its red cover and gilded edges — 
I have it now. It is the first little book I 
ever received, and it was from Mary Smith ; 
and, as it is the only tangible memento of her 
goodness that I possess, I shall keep it as long 
as I can. 

I had a similar present each successive 
season, so long as I regularly attended the 



3 2 



The District School 



summer school. What marvels did they con- 
tain ! How curiosity and wonder feasted on 
their contents ! They were mostly about giants, 
fairies, witches, and ghosts. By this kind of 
reading, superstition was trained up to a mon- 
strous growth ; and, as courage could not thrive 
in its cold and gloomy shadow, it was a sickly 
shoot for years. Giants, fairies, witches, and 
ghosts were ready to pounce upon me from 
every dark corner in the daytime, and from all 
around in the night, if I happened to be alone. 
I trembled to go to bed alone for years ; and I 
was often almost paralyzed with horror when 
I chanced to wake in the stillness of midnight, 
and my ever-busy fancy presented the grim and 
grinning images with which I supposed darkness 
to be peopled. 

I wish I had all those little books now. I 
would bequeath them to a national Lyceum, as 
a specimen, or a mark to show what improve- 
ment has been made. Indeed, if improvement 
has been made in anything, it has been in re- 
spect to children's books. When I compare 
the world of fact in which the " Little Philoso- 
phers " of the present day live, observe, and 
enjoy, with the visionary regions where I 
wandered, wondered, believed, and trembled, 
I almost wish to be a child again, to know the 



As It Was 



33 



pleasure of having earliest cariosity fed with 
fact, instead of fiction and folly, and to know- 
so much about the great world, with so young 
a mind. 




34 The District School 



Chapter VIII 

Grammar — Young Lady's Accidence 
Murray — Parsing — Pope's Essay 

/^N my fifth summer, at the age of seven 
^-^ and a half, I commenced the study of 
grammar. The book generally used in our 
school by beginners, was called the Young 
Lady's Accidence. I had the honor of a new 
one. The Young Lady's Accidence ! How 
often have I gazed on that last word, and 
wondered what it meant ! Even now, I can- 
not define it, though, of course, I have a guess 
at its meaning. Let me turn this very minute 
to that oracle of definitions, the venerable Web- 
ster : " A small book containing the rudiments 
of grammar." That is it, then. But what an 
intelligible and appropriate term for a little 
child's book ! The mysterious title, however, 
was most appropriate to the contents of the 
volume; for they were all mysterious, and that 
for years, to my poor understanding. 

Well, my first lesson was to get the Parts 
of Speech, as they are called. What a grand 



As It Was 3$ 

achievement to engrave on my memory these 
ten separate and strange words ! With what 
ardor I took my lesson from the mistress, and 
trudged to my seat ! It was a new study, and 
it was the first day of the school, moreover, 
before the bashfulness occasioned by a strange 
teacher had subsided, and before the spirit of 
play had been excited. So there was nothing 
at the moment to divert me from the lofty 
enterprise. 

Reader, let your mind's eye peep into that 
old school-house. See that little boy in the 
second high seat from the front, in home-made 
and home-dyed pea-green cotton jacket and 
trowsers, with a clean Monday morning collar 
turned out from his neck. His new book is 
before him on the bench, kept open by his left 
hand. His right supports his head on its palm, 
with the corresponding elbow pressed on the 
bench. His lips move, but at first very slowly. 
He goes over the whole lesson in a low whisper. 
He now looks off his book, and pronounces two 
or three of the first, — article, noun, pronoun ; 
then just glances at the page, and goes on with 
two or three more. He at length repeats sev- 
eral words without looking. Finally, he goes 
through the long catalogue, with his eye fastened 
on vacancy. At length, how his lips flutter, 



36 The District School 

and you hear the parts of speech whizzing from 
his tongue like feathered arrows ! 

There, the rigmarole is accomplished. He 
starts up, and is at the mistress's side in a 
moment. " Will you hear my lesson, ma'am ? " 
As she takes the book, he looks directly in her 
face, and repeats the aforementioned words 
loudly and distinctly, as if there were no fear 
of failure. He has got as far as the adverb ; 
but now he hesitates, his eye drops, his lips are 
open ready for utterance, but the word does not 
come. He shuts them, he presses them hard 
together, he puts his finger to them, and there 
is a painful hiatus in his recitation, a discon- 
nection, an anti to the very word he is after. 
" Conjunction," says the mistress. The little 
hand leaves the lips, at the same time that an 
involuntary " Oh ! " bursts out from them. He 
lifts his head and his eye, and repeats with spirit 
the delinquent word, and goes on without hesi- 
tation to the end of the lesson. "Very well," 
says the teacher, or the hearer of the school ; 
for she rather listened to than instructed her 
pupils. " Get so far for the next lesson." 
The child bows, whirls on his heel, and trips to 
his seat, mightily satisfied excepting with that 
one failure of memory, when that thundering 
word, conjunction, refused to come at his will. 



As It Was 37 

But that word he never forgot again. The 
failure fastened it in his memory forever. This 
pea-green boy was myself, the present historian 
of the scene. 

My next lesson lagged a little ; my third 
seemed quite dull ; my fourth I was two days 
in getting. At the end of the week, I thought 
that I could get along through the world very 
well without grammar, as my grandfather had 
done before me. But my mistress did not agree 
with me, and I was forced to go on. I con- 
trived, however, to make easy work of the study. 
I got frequent, but very short lessons, only a 
single sentence at a time. This was easily 
committed to memory, and would stay on till 
I could run up and toss it off in recitation, after 
which it did not trouble me more. The recol- 
lection of it puts me in mind of a little boy 
lugging in wood, a stick at a time. My teacher 
was so ignorant of the philosophy of mind, that 
she did not know that this was not as good a 
way as any; and indeed, she praised me for my 
smartness. The consequence was, that, after I 
had been through the book, I could scarcely 
have repeated ten lines of it, excepting the very 
first and the very last lessons. Had it been 
ideas instead of words that had thus escaped 
from my mind, the case would have been 



38 The District School 

different. As it was, the only matter of regret 
was, that I had been forming a bad habit, and 
had imbibed an erroneous notion, to wit, that 
lessons were to be learned simply to be recited. 
The next winter this Accidence was com- 
mitted, not to memory, but to oblivion; for, on 
presenting it to the master the first day of the 
school, he told me it was old-fashioned and out 
of date, and I must have Murray's Abridgment. 
So Murray was purchased, and I commenced 
the study of grammar again, excited by the 
novelty of a new and clean and larger book. 
But this soon became even more dull and dry 
than its predecessor ; for it was more than twice 
the size, and the end of it was at the most dis- 
couraging distance of months, if not of years. 
I got only half way through the verb this winter. 
The next summer I began the book again, and 
arrived at the end of the account of the parts 
of speech. The winter after, I went over the 
same ground again, and got through the rules 
of syntax, and felt that I had accomplished a 
great work. The next summer I reviewed the 
whole grammar; for the mistress thought it 
necessary to have " its most practical and im- 
portant parts firmly fixed in the memory, before 
attempting the higher exercises of the study." 
On the third winter, I began to apply my sup- 



As It Was 39 

posed knowledge in the process of passing, as it 
was termed by the master. The very pronun- 
ciation of this word shows how little the teacher 
exercised the power of independent thought. 
He had been accustomed to hear parse called 
pass; and, though the least reflection would 
have told him it was not correct, that reflection 
came not, and for years the grammarians of our 
district school passed. However, it was rightly 
so called. It was passing, as said exercise was 
performed ; passing over, by, around, away, 
from the science of grammar, without coming 
near it, or at least without entering into it 
with much understanding of its nature. Mode, 
tense, case, government, and agreement were 
ever flying from our tongues, to be sure ; but 
their meaning was as much a mystery as the 
hocus pocus of a juggler. 

At first we parsed in simple prose, but soon 
entered on poetry. Poetry — a thing which to 
our apprehension differed from prose in this 
only, that each line began with a capital letter, 
and ended usually with a word sounding like 
another word at the end of the adjoining line. 
But, unskilled as we all generally were in the 
art of parsing, some of us came to think our- 
selves wonderfully acute and dexterous never- 
theless. When we perceived the master himself 



4<d The District School 

to be in doubt and perplexity, then we felt our- 
selves on a level with him, and ventured to 
oppose our guess to his. And if he appeared a 
dunce extraordinary, as was sometimes the 
case, we used to put ourselves into the potential 
mood pretty often, as we knew that our teacher 
could never assume the imperative on this 
subject. 

The fact is, neither we nor the teacher 
entered into the writer's meaning. The gen- 
eral plan of the work was not surveyed, nor the 
particular sense of separate passages examined. 
We could not do it, perhaps from the want of 
maturity of mind ; the teacher did not, because 
he had never been accustomed to anything of 
the kind in his own education; and it never 
occurred to him that he could deviate from the 
track, or improve upon the methods of those 
who taught him. Pope's Essay on Man was 
the parsing manual used by the most advanced. 
No wonder, then, that pupil and pedagogue so 
often got bewildered and lost in a world of 
thought like this ; for, however well ordered a 
creation it might be, it was scarcely better than 
a chaos to them. 

In closing, I ought to remark, that all our 
teachers were not thus ignorant of grammar, 
although they did not perhaps take the best 



As It Was 



4* 



way to teach it. In speaking thus of this 
department of study, and also of others, I have 
reference to the more general character of 
schoolmasters and schools. 




42 The District School 



Chapter IX 



The Particular Master — Various Methods 
of Punishment 

T HAVE given some account of my first winter 
■*■ at school. Of my second, third, and fourth, 
I have nothing of importance to say. The rou- 
tine was the same in each. The teachers were 
remarkable for nothing in particular : if they 
were, I have too indistinct a remembrance of 
their characters to portray them now ; so I will 
pass them by, and describe the teacher of my 
fifth. 

He was called the particular master. The 
scholars in speaking of him, would say, " He is 
so particular." The first morning of the school, 
he read us a long list of regulations to be ob- 
served in school, and out. "There are more 
rules than you could shake a stick at before 
your arm would ache," said some one. "And 
if the master should shake a stick at every one 
who should disobey them, he would not find 
time to do much else," said another. Indeed, 
it proved to be so. Half the time was spent 



As It Was __ __ 43 

in calling up scholars for little misdemeanors, 
trying to make them confess their faults, and 
promise stricter obedience, or in devising pun- 
ishments and inflicting them. Almost every 
method was tried that was ever suggested to 
the brain of pedagogue. Some were feruled 
on the hand-, some were whipped with a rod on 
the back'; some were compelled to hold out, at 
arm's length, the largest book which could be 
found, or a great leaden inkstand, till muscle 
and nerve, bone and marrow, were tortured 
with the continued exertion. If the arm bent 
or inclined from the horizontal level, it was 
forced back again by a knock of the ruler on 
the elbow. I well recollect that one poor 
fellow forgot his suffering by fainting quite 
away. This lingering punishment was more 
befitting the vengeance of a savage, than the 
corrective efforts of a teacher of the young in 

civilized life. 

He had recourse to another method, almost, 
perhaps quite, as barbarous. It was standing 
in a stooping posture, with the finger on the 
head of a nail in the floor. It was a position 
not particularly favorable to health of body or 
soundness of mind; the head being brought 
about as low as the knees, the blood rushing 
to it, and pressing unnaturally on the veins, 



44 The District School 



often caused a dull pain, and a staggering dizzi- 
ness. That man's judgment or mercy must have 
been topsy-turvy also, who first set the example 
of such an infliction on those whose progress in 
knowledge depended somewhat on their being 
kept right end upward. 

The above punishments were sometimes 
rendered doubly painful by their taking place 
directly in front of the enormous fire, so that 
the pitiable culprit was roasted as well as racked. 
Another mode of punishment — an anti-whisper- 
ing process — was setting the jaws at a painful 
distance apart, by inserting a chip perpendicu- 
larly between the teeth. Then we occasionally 
had our hair pulled, our noses tweaked, our ears 
pinched and boxed, or snapped, perhaps, with 
India-rubber ; this last the perfection of ear- 
tingling operations. There were minor penal- 
ties, moreover, for minor faults. The uneasy 
urchins were clapped into the closet, thrust 
under the desk, or perched on its top. Boys 
were made to sit in the girls' seats, amusing the 
school with their grinning awkwardness ; and 
girls were obliged to sit on the masculine side 
of the aisle, with crimsoned necks, and faces 
buried in their aprons. 

But I have dwelt long enough on the various 
penalties of the numerous violations of Master 



As It Was 45 



Particular's many orders. After all, he did not 
keep an orderly school. The cause of the mis- 
chief was, he was variable. He wanted that 
persevering firmness and uniformity which alone 
can insure success. He had so many regula- 
tions, that he could not stop at all times to 
notice the transgressions of them. The schol- 
ars, not knowing with certainty what to expect, 
dared to run the risk of disobedience. The 
consequence of this procedure on the part of 
the ruler and the ruled was, that the school 
became uncommonly riotous before the close 
of the season. The larger scholars soon broke 
over all restraint; but the little ones were nar- 
rowly watched and restricted somewhat longer. 
But these gradually grew unmindful of the un- 
stable authority, and finally contemned it with 
almost insolent effrontery, unless the master's 
temper-kindled eye was fixed directly and men- 
acingly upon them. Thus the many regula- 
tions were like so many cobwebs, through which 
the great flies would break at once, and so tear 
and disorder the net that it would not hold even 
the little ones, or at all answer the purpose for 
which it was spun. 

I would not have it understood that this 
master was singular in his punishments ; for 
such methods of correcting offenders have been 



46 



The District School 



in use time out of mind. He was distinguished 
only for resorting to them more frequently 
than any other instructor within my own obser- 
vation. The truth is, that it seemed to be the 
prevailing opinion both among teachers and 
parents, that boys and girls would play and be 
mischievous at any rate, and that consequently 
masters must punish in some way or other. 
It was a matter of course ; nothing better 
was expected. 




As It Was 47 



Chapter X 

How they used to read in the Old 
School-house in District No. V 

TN this description of the District School, as 
-*- it was, that frequent and important exercise, 
Reading, must not be omitted, — Reading as it 
was. Advance, then, ye readers of the Old 
School-house, and let us witness your perform- 
ances. 

We will suppose it is the first day of the 
school. " Come and read," says the mistress 
to a little flaxen-headed creature of doubtful 
gender ; for the child is in petticoats, and sits 
on the female side, as close as possible to a 
guardian sister. But then those coarser fea- 
tures, tanned complexion, and close-clipped hair, 
with other minutiae of aspect, are somewhat 
contradictory to the feminine dress. " Come 
and read." It is the first time that this he or 
she was ever inside of a school-house, and in 
the presence of a school-ma'am, according to 
recollection, and the order is heard with shrink- 
ing timidity. But the sister whispers an en- 



48 The District School 

couraging word, and helps u tot " down from 
the seat, who creeps out into the aisle, and hesi- 
tates along down to the teacher, biting his fin- 
gers, or scratching his head, perhaps both, to 
relieve the embarrassment of the novel situa- 
tion. "What is your name, dear ? " "Tbolo- 
mon Icherthon" lisps the now-discovered he, in 
a phlegm-choked voice, scarce above a whisper. 
" Put your hands down by your side, Solomon, 
and make a bow." He obeys, if a short and 
hasty jerk of the head is a bow. The alpha- 
betical page of the spelling-book is presented, 
and he is asked, " What's that ? " But he can- 
not tell. He is but two years and a half old, 
and has been sent to school to relieve his 
mother from trouble, rather than to learn. No 
one at home has yet shown or named a letter 
to him. He has never had even that celebrated 
character, round O, pointed out to his notice. 
It was an older beginner, most probably, who, 
being asked a similar question about the first 
letter of the alphabet, replied, " I know him by 
sight, but can't tell him by name." But our 
namesake of the wise man does not know the 
gentleman even by sight, nor any of his twenty- 
five companions. 

Solomon Richardson has at length said A, B, 
C, for the first time in his life. He has read. 



As It Was 49 

ct That's a nice boy ; make another bow, and 
go to your seat." He gives another jerk of 
the head, and whirls on his heel, and trots back 
to his seat, meeting the congratulatory smile of 
Ills sister with a satisfied grin, which, put into 
language, would be, " There, I've read, ha'nt 
I?" 

The little chit, at first so timid, and almost 
inaudible in enunciation, in a few days becomes 
accustomed to the place and the exercise ; and, 
in obedience to the " Speak up loud, that's a 
good boy," he soon pipes oft" A-er, B-er, C-er, 
&c, with a far-ringing shrillness, that vies even 
with chanticleer himself. Solomon went all 
the pleasant days of the first summer, and 
nearly every day of the next, before he knew 
all the letters by sight, or could call them by 
name. Strange that it should take so long to 
become acquainted with these twenty-six char- 
acters, when, in a month's time, the same child 
becomes familiar with the forms and the names 
of hundreds of objects in nature around, or in 
use about his father's house, shop, or farm ! 
Not so very strange either, if we only reflect a 
moment. Take a child into a party of twenty- 
six persons, all strangers, and lead him from 
one to the other as fast as his little feet can 
patter, telling him their respective names, all 



5° 



The District School 



in less than ten minutes ; do this four times a 
day even, and you would not be surprised if he 
should be weeks at least, if not months, in 
learning to designate them all by their names. 
Is it any matter of surprise, then, that the child 
should be so long in becoming acquainted with 
the alphabetical party, when he is introduced to 
them precisely in the manner above described ? 
Then, these are not of different heights, com- 
plexions, dresses*, motions, and tones of voice, 
as a living company have. But there they 
stand in an unalterable line, all in the same 
complexions and dress ; all just so tall, just so 
motionless and mute and uninteresting, and, of 
course, the most unrememberable figures in the 
world. No wonder that some should go to 
school, and " sit on a bench, and say A B C," 
as a little girl said, for a whole year, and still 
find themselves strangers to some of the sable 
company, even then. Our little reader is per- 
mitted at length to turn a leaf, and he finds 
himself in the region of the Abs, — an ex- 
panse of little syllables, making me, who am 
given to comparisons, think of an extensive 
plain whereon there is no tree or shrub or 
plant, or anything else inviting to the eye, and 
nothing but little stones, stones, stones, all 
about the same size. And what must the poor 



As It Was 51 

little learner do here ? Why, he must hop from 
cobble to cobble, if I may so call ab, eb, ib, as 
fast as he possibly can, naming each one, after 
the voice of the teacher, as he hurries along. 
And this must be kept up until he can denomi- 
nate each lifeless and uninteresting object on 
the face of the desert. 

After more or less months, the weary novice 
ceases to be an Ab-ite. He is next put into 
whole words of one syllable, arranged in col- 
umns. The first word we read in Perry that 
conveyed anything like an idea, was the first 
one in the first column, — the word ache: ay, 
we did not easily forget what this meant, when 
once informed ; the corresponding idea, or rather 
feeling, was so often in our consciousness. Ache, 
— a very appropriate term with which to begin 
a course of education so abounding in pains of 
body and of mind. 

After five pages of this perpendicular reading, 
if I may so call it, we entered on the horizon- 
tal, that is, on words arranged in sentences and 
paragraphs. This was reading in good earnest, 
as grown-up folks did, and something with 
which tiny childhood would be very naturally 
puffed up. "Easy Lessons" was the title of 
about a dozen separate chapters, scattered at 
intervals among the numerous spelling columns, 



52 The District School 

like brambly openings here and there amid the 
tall forest. Easy lessons, because they consisted 
mostly of little monosyllabic words, easy to be 
pronounced. But they were not easy as it re- 
gards being understood. They were made up 
of abstract moral sentences, presenting but a 
very faint meaning to the child, if any at all. 
Their particular application to his own conduct 
he would not perceive, of course, without help; 
and this it scarcely ever entered the head or the 
heart of the teacher to afford. 

In the course of summers, how many I for- 
get, we arrived at the most manly and dignified 
reading the illustrious Perry had prepared for us. 
It was entitled "Moral Tales and Fables." In 
these latter, beasts and birds talked like men ; 
and strange sorts of folks, called Jupiter, Mer- 
cury, and Juno, were pictured as sitting up in 
the clouds, and talking with men and animals 
on earth, or as down among them doing very 
unearthly things. To quote language in com- 
mon use, we kind o* believed it all to be true, and 
yet we kind o didnt. As for the " moral " at 
the end, teachers never dreamed of attracting 
our attention to it. Indeed, we had no other 
idea of all these Easy Lessons, Tales, and 
Fables, than that they were to be syllabled from 
the tongue in the task of reading. That they 



As It Was S3 



were to sink into the heart, and make us better 
in life, never occurred to our simple understand- 
ings. 

Among all the rest were five pieces of poetry, 
— charming stuff to read; the words would 
come along one after another so easily, and the 
lines would jingle so pleasantly together at the 
end, tickling the ear like two beads in a rattle. 
" Oh ! give us poetry to read, of all things,' , we 
thought. 

We generally passed directly from the spell- 
ing-book to the reading-book of the first class, 
although we were ranked the second class still. 
Or perhaps we took a book which had been for- 
merly used by the first class ; for a new reading- 
book was generally introduced once in a few 
years in compliance with the earnest recommen- 
dation of the temporary teacher. While the 
first class were in Scott's Lessons, we of the 
second were pursuing their tracks, not altogether 
understanding^, through Adams' Understanding 
Reader. When a new master persuaded them 
into Murray, then we were admitted into Scott. 
The principal requisites in reading, in these 
days, were to read fast, mind the " stops and 
marks," and speak up loud. As for suiting the 
tone to the meaning, no such thing was dreamed 
of, in our school at least. As much emphasis 



54 The District School 

was laid on an insignificant of or and as on the 
most important word in the piece. But no 
wonder we did not know how to vary our tones, 
for we did not always know the meaning of the 
words, or enter into the general spirit of the 
composition. This was very frequently, indeed 
almost always, the case with the majority even 
of the first class. Parliamentary prose and Mil- 
tonic verse were just about as good as Greek 
for the purpose of modulating the voice accord- 
ing to meaning. It scarcely ever entered the 
heads of our teachers to question us about the 
ideas hidden in the great, long words and spa- 
cious sentences. It is possible that they did 
not always discover it themselves. " Speak up 
there, and not read like a mouse in a cheese ; 
and mind your stops," — such were the princi- 
pal directions respecting the important art of 
elocution. Important it was most certainly con- 
sidered ; for each class must read twice in the 
forenoon, and the same in the afternoon, from 
a quarter to half an hour each time, according 
to the size of the class. Had they read but once 
or twice, and but little at a time, and this with 
nice and very profitable attention to tone and 
sense, parents would have thought the master 
most miserably deficient in duty, and their chil- 
dren cheated out of their rights, notwithstanding 



As It Was 55 

the time thus saved should be most assiduously 
devoted to other all-important branches of edu- 
cation. 

^*lt ought not to be omitted, that the Bible, 
particularly the New Testament, was the read- 
ing twice a day, generally, for all the classes 
adequate to words of more than one syllable. 
It was the only reading of several of the younger 
classes under some teachers. On this practice 
I shall make but a single remark. As far as 
my own experience and observation extended, 
reverence for the sacred volume was not deep- 
ened by this constant but exceedingly careless / 
use. 




56 The District School 



Chapter XI 
How they used to spell 

THERE, the class have read ; but they have 
something else to do before they take 
their seats. " Shut your books," says he who 
has been hearing them read. What makes this 
row of little countenances brighten up so sud- 
denly, especially the upper end of it ? What 
wooden faces and leaden eyes, two minutes 
ago! The reading was nothing to them, — 
those select sentences and maxims in Perry's 
spelling-book which are tucked in between the 
fables. It is all as dull as a dirge to those life- 
loving boys and girls. They almost drowsed 
while they stood up in their places. But they 
are fully awake now. They are going to spell. 
But this in itself is the driest exercise to pre- 
pare for, and the driest to perform, of the 
whole round. The child cares no more in his 
heart about the arrangement of vowels and 
consonants in the orthography of words, than 
he does how many chips lie one above another 
at the school-house wood-pile. But he does 



As It Was 57 

care whether he is at the head or foot of his 
class ; whether the money dangles from his own 
neck or another's. This is the secret of the 
interest in spelling. Emulation is awakened, 
ambition roused. There is something like the 
tug of strength in the wrestle, something of 
the alternation of hope and fear in a game of 
chance. There has been a special preparation 
for the trial. Observe this class any day, half 
an hour before they are called up to read. What 
a flitting from top to bottom of the spelling 
column, and what a flutter of lips and hissing 
of utterance ! Now the eye twinkles on the 
page to catch a word, and now it is fixed on 
the empty air, while the orthography is syl- 
labled over and over again in mind, until at 
length it is syllabled on the memory. But the 
time of trial has come ; they have only to read 
first. "The third class may come and read." 
" O dear, I haven't got my spelling lesson," 
mutters Charlotte to herself. She has just 
begun the art of writing this winter, and she 
lingered a little too long at her hooks and tram- 
mels. The lesson seems to her to have as 
many again hard words in it as common. 
What a flutter she is in ! She got up above 
George in the forenoon, and she would not get 
down again for anything. She is as slow in 



The District School 



coming from her seat as she possibly can be 
and keep moving. She makes a chink in her 
book with her finger, and every now and then, 
during the reading exercise, steals a glance at a 
difficult word. 

But the reading is over, and what a brighten- 
ing up, as was said before, with the exception, 
perhaps, of two or three idle or stupid boys at 
that less honorable extremity of the class called 
the foot ! That boy at the head — no, it was 
a boy ; but Harriet has at length got above 
him ; and, when girls once get to the head, get 
them away from it if you can. Once put the 
" pride of place " into their hearts, and how 
they will- queen it ! Then they are more sen- 
sitive regarding anything that might lower 
them in the eyes of others, and seem the least 
like disgrace. I have known a little girl to cry 
the half of one day, and look melancholy the 
whole of the next, on losing her place at the 
head. Girls are more likely to arrive at and 
keep the first place in the class, in consequence 
of a little more help from mother nature than 
boys get. I believe that they generally have a 
memory more fitted for catching and holding 
words and other signs addressed to the eye, 
than the other sex. That girl at the head has 
studied her spelling lesson, until she is as con- 



As It Was 



59 



fident of every word as the unerring Perry him- 
self. She can spell every word in the column, 
in the order it stands, without the master's 
" putting it out," she has been over it so many 
times. " Now, Mr. James, get up again if you 
can," thinks Harriet. I pity you, poor girl ; 
for James has an ally that will blow over your 
proud castle in the air. Old Boreas, the king 
of the winds, will order out a snow-storm by 
and by, to block up the roads, so that none 
but booted and weather-proof males can get to 
school ; and you, Miss, must lose a day or two, 
and then find yourself at the foot with those 
blockhead boys who always abide there. But 
let it not be thought that all those foot lads are 
deficient in intellect. Look at them when the 
master's back is turned, and you will see mis- 
chievous ingenuity enough to convince you that 
they might surpass even James and Harriet, had 
some other faculties been called into exercise 
besides the mere memory of verbalities. 

The most extraordinary spelling, and indeed 
reading machine, in our school, was a boy whom 
I shall call Memorus Wordwell. He was 
mighty and wonderful in the acquisition and 
remembrance of words, — of signs without the 
ideas signified. The alphabet he acquired at 
home before he was two years old. What exul- 



60 The District School 

tation of parents, what exclamation from admir- 
ing visitors ! " There was never anything like 
it." He had almost accomplished his Abs 
before he was thought old enough for school. 
At an earlier age than usual, however, he was 
sent \ and then he went from Ache to Abomination 
in half the summers and winters it took the rest 
of us to go over the same space. Astonishing 
how quickly he mastered column after column, 
section after section, of obstinate orthographies. 
Those martial terms I have just used, together 
with our hero's celerity, put me in mind of 
Cassar. So I will quote him. Memorus might 
have said in respect to the host of the spelling- 
book, " I came, I saw, I conquered." He gen- 
erally stood at the head of a class, each one of 
whom was two years his elder. Poor creatures ! 
they studied hard, some of them, but it did no 
good : Memorus Wordwell was born to be above 
them, as some men are said to have been " born 
to command." At the public examination of 
his first winter, the people of the district, and 
even the minister, thought it marvelous that 
such monstrous great words should be mastered 
by " such a leetle mite of a boy ! " Memorus 
was mighty also in saying those after spelling 
matters — the Key, the Abbreviations, the Punc- 
tuation, &c. These things were deemed of 



As It Was 6 1 

great account to be laid up in remembrance, 
although they were all very imperfectly under- 
stood, and some of them not understood at all. 

Punctuation — how many hours, days, and 
even weeks, have I tugged away to lift, as it 
were, to roll up into the store-house of my 
memory, the many long, heavy sentences com- 
prehended under this title ! Only survey (we 
use this word when speaking of considerable 
space and bulk) — only survey the first sentence, 
a transcript of which I will endeavor to locate 
in these narrow bounds. I would have my 
readers of the rising generation know what 
mighty labors we little creatures of five, six, and 
seven years old were set to perform : — 

" Punctuation is the art of pointing, or of 
dividing a discourse into periods by points, ex- 
pressing the pauses to be made in the reading 
thereof, and regulating the cadence or elevation 
of the voice." 

There, I have labored weeks on that ; for I 
always had the lamentable defect of mind not 
to be able to commit to memory what I did not 
understand. My teachers never aided me with 
the least explanation of the above-copied sen- 
tence, nor of other reading of a similar character, 
which was likewise to be committed to memory. 
But this and all was nothing, as it were, to 



62 The District School 

Memorus Wordwell. He was a very Hercules 
in this wilderness of words. 

Master Wordwell was a remarkable reader 
too. He could rattle off a word as extensive as 
the name of a Russian noble, when he was but 
five years old, as easily as the schoolmaster him- 
self. " He can read in the hardest chapters of 
the Testament as fast agin as I can," said his 
mother. " I never did see nothin beat it," ex- 
claimed his father ; " he speaks up as loud as a 
minister." But I have said enough about this 
prodigy. I have said thus much, because, al- 
though he was thought so surpassingly bright, he 
was the most decided ninny in the school. The 
fact is, he did not know what the sounds he 
uttered meant. It never entered his head, nor 
the heads of his parents and most of his teachers, 
that words and sentences were written, and 
should be read, only to be understood. He lost 
some of his reputation, however, when he grew 
up towards twenty-one, and it was found that 
numbers, in more senses than one, were far above 
him in arithmetic. 

One little anecdote about Memorus Word- 
well before we let him go, and this long chapter 
shall be no longer. 

It happened one day that the " cut and split " 
for the fire fell short, and Jonas Patch was out 



As It Was 63 

wielding the ax in school time. He had been 
at work about half an hour, when Memorus, 
who was perceived to have less to do than the 
rest, was sent out to take his place. He was 
about ten years old, and four years younger than 
Jonas. " Memorus, you may go out and spell 
Jonas." Our hero did not think of the Yankee 
sense in which the master used the word spell : 
indeed he had never attached but one meaning 
to it, whenever it was used with reference to 
himself. He supposed the master was granting 
him a ride extraordinary on his favorite hobby. 
So he put his spelling-book under his arm, and 
was out at the wood-pile with the speed of a 
boy rushing to play. 

"Ye got yer spellin lesson, Jonas ? " was his 
first salutation. " Haven't looked at it yit," 
was the reply. " I mean to cut up this plaguy 
great log, spellin or no spellin, before I go in. 
I had as lieve keep warm here choppin wood, as 
freeze up there in that tarnal cold back seat." 
" Well, the master sent me out to hear you 
spell." " Did he ? well, put out the words, and 
I'll spell." Memorus being so distinguished a 
speller, Jonas did not doubt but that he was 
really sent out on this errand. So our deputy 
spelling-master mounted the top of the wood- 
pile, just in front of Jonas, to put out words to 



64 The District School 

his temporary pupil, who still kept on putting 
out chips. 

" Do you know where the lesson begins, 
Jonas ? " " No, I don't ; but I 'spose I shall 
find out now." "Well, here 'tis." (They 
both belonged to the same class.) " Spell 
A-bom-i-na-tion." Jonas spells. A-b-o-m bom 
a-bom (in the mean time up goes the ax high 
in air), i a-bom-i (down it goes again chuck into 
the wood) n-a na a-bom-i-na (up it goes again) 
t-i-o-n tion, a-bom-i-na-tion ; chuck the ax 
goes again, and at the same time out flies a furi- 
ous chip, and hits Memorus on the nose. At 
this moment the master appeared just at the 
corner of the school-house, with one foot still 
on the threshold. " Jonas, why don't you come 
in ? didn't I send Memorus out to spell you ? " 
" Yes, sir, and he has been spelling me ; how 
could I come in if he spelt me here ? " At this 
the master's eye caught Memorus perched up 
on the top-stick, with his book open upon his 
lap, rubbing his nose, and just in the act of 
putting out the next word of the column. Ac- 
com-mo-da-tion, pronounced Memorus in a 
broken but louder voice than before ; for he had 
caught a glimpse of the master, and he wished 
to let him know that he was doing his duty. 
This was too much for the master's gravity. 



As It Was 6$ 

He perceived the mistake, and, without saying 
more, wheeled back into the school-room, almost 
bursting with the most tumultuous laughter he 
ever tried to suppress. The scholars wondered 
at his looks, and grinned in sympathy. But in 
a few minutes Jonas came in, followed by 
Memorus with his spelling-book, who exclaimed, 
" I have heard him spell clean through the 
whole lesson, and he didn't spell hardly none of 
'em right." The master could hold in no 
longer, and the scholars perceived the blunder, 
and there was one simultaneous roar from peda- 
gogue and pupils ; the scholars laughing twice 
as loud and uproariously in consequence of being 
permitted to laugh in school time, and to do it 
with the accompaniment of the master. 




66 The District School 



Chapter XII 

Mr. Spoutsound, the Speaking Master — 
the Exhibition 

\TOW comes winter the sixth, of my dis- 
■*■ trict education. Our master was as in- 
significant a personage as is often met with 
beyond the age of twenty-one. He ought to 
have been pedagogue in that land of littleness, 
Lilliput. Our great fellows of the back seat 
might have tossed him out of the window from 
the palm of the hand. But he possessed cer- 
tain qualifications, and pursued such a course 
that he was permitted to retain the magisterial 
seat through his term, and indeed was quite 
popular on the whole. 

He was as remarkable for the loudness and 
compass of his voice, as for the diminutiveness 
of his material dimensions. How such a body 
of sound could proceed from so bodiless an ex- 
istence, was a marvel. It seemed as unnatural 
as that a tremendous thunder-clap should burst 
from a speck of cloud in the sky. He gener- 



As It Was 67 

ally sat with the singers on the Sabbath, and 
drowned the feebler voices with the inundation 
of his bass. 

But it was not with his tuneful powers alone, 
that he " astonished the natives." He was 
imagined to possess great gifts of oratory like- 
wise. " What a pity it is that he had not been 
a minister ! " was said. It was by his endow- 
ments and taste in this respect that he made 
himself particularly memorable in our school. 
Mr. Spoutsound had been one quarter, to an 
academy where declamation was a weekly exer- 
cise. Finding in this, ample scope for his vocal 
extraordinariness (a long-winded word, to be 
sure, but so appropriate), he became an enthusi- 
astic votary to the Ciceronian art. The princi- 
pal qualification of an orator in his view, was 
height, depth, and breadth of utterance, — quan- 
tity of sound. Of course, he fancied himself a 
very lion in oratory. Indeed, as far as roaring 
would go, he was a lion. This gentleman in- 
troduced declamation, or the speaking of pieces, 
as it was called, into our school. He considered 
u speaking of the utmost consequence in this 
country, as any boy might be called to a seat 
in the legislature, perhaps, in the course of 
things." It was a novelty to the scholars, and 
they entered with their whole souls into the 



68 The District School 

matter. It was a pleasant relief to the dullness 
of the old-fashioned routine. 

What a rummaging of books, pamphlets, and 
newspapers now took place, to find pieces to 
speak ! The American Preceptor, the Colum- 
bian Orator, the Art of Reading, Scott's Elocu- 
tion, Webster's Third Part, and I know not 
how many other ancients, were taken down 
from their dusty retirement at home, for the sake 
of the specimens of eloquence they afforded. 
Those pieces were deemed best by us grandsons 
of the Revolutionists, which most abounded in 
those glorious words, Freedom, Liberty, Inde- 
pendence, and other spirit-kindling names and 
phrases, that might be mentioned. Another 
recommendation was high-flown language, and 
especially words that were long and sonorous, 
such as would roll thunderingly from the tongue. 
For, like our district professor, we had the im- 
pression that noise was the most important 
quality in eloquence. The first, the second, 
and the third requisite was the same ; it was 
noise, noise, noise. Action, however, or gesticu- 
lation, was not omitted. This was considered 
the next qualification of a good orator. So 
there was the most vehement swinging of arms, 
shaking of fists, and waving of palms. That 
occasional motion of the limb and force of 



As It Was 69 

voice, called emphasis, was not a characteristic 
of our eloquence, or rather it was all emphasis. 
Our utterance was something like the continu- 
ous roar of a swollen brook over a mill-dam, 
and our action like the unintermitted whirling 
and clapping of adjacent machinery. 

We tried our talent in the dramatic way like- 
wise. There were numerous extracts from 
dramatic compositions scattered through the 
various reading-books we had mustered. These 
dialogistic performances were even more inter- 
esting than our speechifying in the semblance 
of lawyers and legislators. We more easily 
acquired an aptitude for this exercise, as it was 
somewhat like that every-day affair, conversa- 
tion. In this we were brought face to face, 
voice to voice, with each other, and our social 
sympathies were kindled into glow. We talked 
with, as well as at, folks. Then the female 
portion of the school could take a part in the 
performance ; and who does not know that dia- 
loguing, as well as dancing, has twice the zest 
with a female partner ? The whole school, with 
the exception of the very least perhaps, were 
engaged, indeed absorbed, in this novel branch 
of education introduced by Mr. Spoutsound. 
Some, who had not got out of their Abs, were 
taught, by admiring fathers and mothers at 



70 The District School 

home, little pieces by rote, and made to screech 
them out with most ear-splitting execution. 
One lad in this way committed to memory that 
famous piece of self-puffery beginning with the 
lines, — 

" You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage." 

Memorus Wordwell committed to memory 
and parroted forth that famous speech of Pitt, 
in which he so eloquently replies to the charge 
of being a young man. 

Cicero at Athens was not more assiduous in 
seeking the "immense and the infinite" in elo- 
quence, than we were in seeking the great in 
speaking. Besides half an hour of daily school 
time set apart for the exercise, under the imme- 
diate direction and exemplification of the master, 
our noonings were devoted to the same, as far 
as the young's ruling passion, the love of play, 
would permit. And on the way to and from 
school, the pleasure of dialogue would compete 
with that of dousing each other into the snow. 
We even " spoke " while doing our night and 
morning work at home. A boy might be seen 
at the wood-pile hacking at a log and a dialogue 
by turns. Or perhaps, after dispensing the 
fodder to the tenants of the barn, he would 



As It Was 71 

mount a half-cleared scaffold, and out-bellow 
the wondering beeves below. 

As the school drew towards a close, Mr. 
Spoutsound proposed to have an exhibition in 
addition to the usual examination, on the last 
day, or rather the evening of it. Our oratorical 
gifts and accomplishments must be publicly dis- 
played ; which is next to publicly using them 
in the important affairs of the town, the State, 
or the country. 

" An exhibition ! — I want to know ! can it 
be ? " There had never been anything like it 
in the district before, nor indeed in the town. 
Such a thing had scarcely been heard of, except 
by some one whose uncle or cousin had been 
to the academy or to college. The people of 
the district were wide awake. The younger 
portion of them could hardly sleep nights. 

The scholars are requested to select the pieces 
they would prefer to speak, whether speeches 
or dialogues ; and to arrange among themselves 
who should be fellow-partners in the dramatical 
performances. The master, however, retained 
the right of veto on their choice. Now, what 
a rustle of leaves and flutter of lips in school- 
hours, and noisier flapping of books and clatter 
of tongues at noon, in settling who shall have 
which, and who speak with whom. At length 



72 The District School 

all is arranged, and mostly to the minds of all. 
Then, for a week or two before the final con- 
summation of things eloquent, it was nothing 
but rehearsal. No pains were spared by any 
one that he might be perfect in the recollection 
and flourishing-off of his part. Dialoguists were 
grouped together in every corner. There was 
a buzz in the back seat, a hum in the closet, a 
screech in the entry, and the very climax of 
vociferation in the spelling-floor. Here the 
solos (if I may borrow a term from music) were 
rehearsed under the immediate criticism of Mr. 
Spoutsound, whose chief delight was in forensic 
and parliamentary eloquence. The old school- 
house was a little Babel in the confusion of 
tongues. 

The expected day at length arrives. There 
must be, of course, the usual examination in the 
afternoon. But nobody attended this but the 
minister, and the committee who engaged 
the master. The people of the district all in- 
tended to be at the exhibition in the evening, 
and examination was "just nothing at all " with 
that in prospect. And, in fact, it was just noth- 
ing at all; for the "ruling passion" had swal- 
lowed up very much of the time that should 
have been devoted to the really important 
branches of education. 



As It Was 73 

After the finishing of the school, a stage was 
erected at the end of the spelling-floor, next to 
the desk and the closet. It was hung round 
with checked bed-blankets, in the semblance of 
theatrical curtains, to conceal any preparations 
that might be necessary between the pieces. 

The exhibition was to commence at half past 
six. Before that time, the old school-house was 
crowded to the utmost of its capacity for con- 
taining, by the people not only of our district, 
but of other parts of the town. The children 
were wedged into chinks too narrow for the 
admission of the grown-up. Never were a 
multitude of living bodies more completely 
compressed and amalgamated into one continu- 
ous mass. 

On the front writing-bench, just before the 
stage, and facing the audience, sat the four first, 
and some of the most interesting performers on 
the occasion, viz., players on the clarionet, 
violin, bass-viol, and bassoon. But they of the 
bow were sorely troubled at first. Time and 
space go together with them, you know. They 
cannot keep the first without possessing the lat- 
ter. As they sat, their semibreves were all 
shortened into minims, indeed into crotchets, 
for lack of elbow-room. At length the violin- 
ist stood up straight on the writing-bench, 



74 The District School 

so as to have an unimpeded stretch in the 
empty air, above the thicket of heads. His 
fellow-sufferer then contrived to stand so that 
his long bow could sweep freely between the 
steady heads of two broad-shouldered men, out 
of danger from joggling boys. This band dis- 
coursed what was to our ears most eloquent 
music, as a prelude to the musical eloquence 
which was to be the chief entertainment of the 
occasion. They played intermediately also, and 
gave the winding-off flourish of sound. 

At forty minutes past six, the curtain rose; 
that is, the bed-blankets were pulled aside. 
There stood Mr. Spoutsound on the stage, in 
all the pomp possible to diminutiveness. He 
advanced two steps, and bowed as profoundly 
from height to depth as his brevity of stature 
would admit. He then opened the exhibition 
by speaking a poetical piece called a Prologue, 
which he found in one of the old reading-books. 
As this was originally composed as an intro- 
duction to a stage performance, it was thought 
appropriate on this occasion. Mr. Spoutsound 
now put forth in all the plenitude of his utter- 
ance. It seemed a vocal cataract, all torrent, 
thunder, and froth. But it wanted room, — an 
abyss to empty into ; and all it had was the 
remnant of space left in our little school-room. 



As It Was 75 

A few of the audience were overwhelmed with 
the pour and rush and roar of the pent-up noise, 
and the rest with admiration, yea, astonishment, 
that the schoolmaster " could speak so." 

He ceased — it was all as still as if every 
other voice had died of envy. He bowed — 
there was then a general breathing, as if the 
vocals were just coming to life again. He sat 
down on a chair placed on the stage; then there 
was one general buzz, above which arose, here 
and there, a living and loud voice. Above this, 
soon arose the exaltation of the orator's favorite 
march ; for he deemed it proper that his own 
performance should be separated from those of 
his pupils by some length and loftiness of 
music. 

Now the exhibition commenced in good ear- 
nest. The dramatists dressed in costumes ac- 
cording to the character to be sustained, as far 
as all the old and odd dresses that could be mus- 
tered up would enable them to do so. The dis- 
trict, and indeed the town, had been ransacked 
for revolutionary coats and cocked-up hats and 
other grand-fatherly and grand-motherly attire. 

The people present were quite as much 
amused with the spectacle as with the speaking. 
To see the old fashions on the young folks, and 
to see the young folks personating characters so 



y6 The District School 

entirely opposite to their own ; for instance, the 
slim, pale-faced youth, by the aid of stuffing, 
looking, and acting the fat old wine-bibber ; the 
blooming girl of seventeen, putting on the cap, 
the kerchief, and the character of seventy-five, 
&c, — all this was ludicrously strange. A very 
refined taste might have observed other things 
that were strangely ludicrous in the elocution 
and gesticulation of these disciples of Mr. Spout- 
sound ; but most of the company present were 
so fortunate as to perceive no bad taste to mar 
their enjoyment. 

The little boy of five spoke the little piece — 

"You'd scarce expect one of my age," &c. 

I recollect another line of the piece which has 
become singularly verified in the history of the 
lad. It is this — 

"Tall oaks from little acorns grow." 

Now, this acorn of eloquence, which sprouted 
forth so vigorously on this occasion, has at 
length grown into a mighty oak of oratory on 
his native hills. He has flourished in a Fourth 
of July oration before his fellow-townsmen. 

Memorus Wordwell, who at this time was 
eleven years old, yelped forth the aforementioned 
speech of Pitt. In the part replying to the 



As It Was 77 

taunt that the author of the speech was a young 
man, Memorus " beat all." Next to the mas- 
ter himself, he excited the greatest admiration, 
and particularly in his father and mother. 

But this chapter must be ended, so we will 
skip to the end of this famous exhibition. At 
a quarter past ten, the curtain dropped for the 
last time; that is, the bed-blankets were pulled 
down and put into the sleighs of their owners, 
to be carried home to be spread over the 
dreamers of acts, instead of being hung before 
the actors of dreams. The little boys and girls 
did not get to bed till eleven o'clock that night, 
nor all of them to sleep till twelve. They were 
never more the pupils of Mr. Spoutsound. He 
soon migrated to one of the States beyond the 
Alleghany. There he studied law not more 
than a year certainly, and was admitted to the 
Bar. It is rumored that he soon spoke himself 
into the legislature, and as soon spoke himself 
out again. Whether he will speak himself into 
Congress is a matter of exceeding doubt. I 
have nothing more to add respecting the speak- 
ing master, or the speaking, excepting that one 
shrewd old man was heard to say on leaving the 
school-house, exhibition night, "A great try, but 
little wool." 



78 The District School 



Chapter XIII 
Learning to write 

THE winter I was nine years old, I made 
another advance toward the top of the 
ladder, in the circumstance of learning to write. 
I desired and pleaded to commence the chiro- 
graphical art the summer, and indeed the winter 
before ; for others of my own age were at it 
thus early. But my father said that my fingers 
were hardly stout enough to manage a quill 
from his geese ; but that, if I would put up 
with the quill of a hen, I might try. This 
pithy satire put an end to my teasing. 

Having previously had the promise of writing 
this winter, I had made all the necessary prepa- 
rations, days before school was to begin. I had 
bought me a new birch ruler, and had given a 
third of my wealth, four cents, for it. To this 
I had appended, by a well-twisted flaxen string, 
a plummet of my own running, whittling, and 
scraping. I had hunted up an old pewter ink- 
stand, which had come down from the ancestral 
eminence of my great grandfather, for aught I 



As It Was 79 

know ; and it bore many marks of a speedier 
and less honorable descent, to wit, from table or 
desk to the floor. I had succeeded in becoming 
the owner of a penknife, not that it was likely 
to be applied to its appropriate use that winter 
at least ; for such beginners generally used the 
instrument to mar that kind of pens they wrote 
in, rather than to make or mend those they wrote 
with. I had selected one of the fairest quills 
out of an enormous bunch. Half a quire of 
foolscap had been folded into the shape of a 
writing-book by the maternal hand, and covered 
with brown paper, nearly as thick as a sheep- 
skin. 

Behold me now, on the first Monday in 
December, starting for school, with my new 
and clean writing-book buttoned under my 
jacket, my inkstand in my pocket, a bundle 
of necessary books in one hand, and my ruler 
and swinging plummet in the other, which I 
flourished in the air and around my head, till 
the sharpened lead made its first mark on my 
own face. My long white-feathered goose- 
quill was twisted into my hat-band, like a 
plumy badge of the distinction to which I had 
arrived, and the important enterprise before me. 

On arriving at the school-house, I took a 
seat higher up and more honorable than the 



80 The District School 

one I occupied the winter before. At the 
proper time, my writing-book, which, with my 
quill, I had handed to the master on entering, 
was returned to me, with a copy set, and paper 
ruled and pen made. My copy was a single 
straight mark, at the first corner of my manu- 
script. " A straight mark ! who could not 
make so simple a thing as that ? " thought I. 
I waited, however, to see how the boy next to 
me, a beginner also, should succeed, as he had 
got ready a moment before me. Never shall 
I forget the first chirographical exploit of this 
youth. That inky image will never be eradi- 
cated from my memory, so long as a single 
trace of early experience is left on its tablet. 
The fact is, it was an epoch in my life: some- 
thing great was to be done, and my attention 
was intensely awake to whatever had a bearing 
on this new and important trial of my powers. 
I looked to see a mark as straight as a ruler, 
having its four corners as distinctly defined as 
the angles .of a parallelogram. 

But, O me ! what a spectacle ! What a 
shocking contrast to my anticipation ! That 
mark had as many crooks as a ribbon in the 
wind, and nearer eight angles than four ; and 
its two sides were nearly as rough and as 
notched as a fine handsaw ; and, indeed, the 



As It Was 8 1 



mark somewhat resembled it in width, for the 
fellow had laid in a store of ink sufficient to 
last the journey of the whole line. "Shame 
on him ! " said I, internally, " I can beat that, 
I know." I began by setting my pen firmly 
on the paper, and I brought a mark half way 
down with rectilinear precision. But by this 
time my head began to swim, and my hand 
to tremble. I was as it were in vacancy, far 
below the upper ruling, and as far above the 
lower. My self-possession failed ; my pen 
diverged to the right, then to the left, crook- 
ing all the remainder of its way, with as many 
zig-zags as could well be in so short a distance. 
Mine was as sad a failure as my neighbor's. I 
covered it over with my fingers, and did not jog 
him with a " see there," as I had vainly antici- 
pated. 

So much for painstaking, now for chance. 
By good luck the next effort was quite success- 
ful. I now dashed on, for better or worse, till 
in one half-hour I had covered the whole page 
with the standing, though seemingly falling, 
monuments of the chirographical wisdom of 
my teacher, and skill of myself. In the after- 
noon a similar copy was set, and I dashed on 
again as if I had taken so much writing by the 
job, and my only object was to save time. Now 

G 



82 The District School 

and then there was quite a reputable mark ; but 
alas — for him whose perception of the beauti- 
ful was particularly delicate, should he get a 
glimpse of these sloughs of ink ! 

The third morning, my copy was the first 
element of the m and «, or what in burlesque 
is called a hook. On my fourth, I had the last 
half of the same letters, or the trammel. 

In this way I went through all the small let- 
ters, as they are called. First, the elements or 
constituent parts, then the whole character in 
which these parts were combined. 

Then I must learn to make the capitals, be- 
fore entering on joining hand. Four pages 
were devoted to these. Capital letters ! They 
were capital offences against all that is graceful, 
indeed decent, yea tolerable, in that art which 
is so capable of beautiful forms and proportions. 

I came next to joining hand, about three 
weeks after my commencement ; and joining 
hand indeed it was ! It seemed as if my hooks 
and trammels were overheated in the forge, 
and were melted into each other; the shapeless 
masses so clung together at points where they 
ought to have been separate, so very far were 
they from all resemblance to conjoined, yet dis- 
tinct and well-defined characters. 

Thus I went on, a perfect little prodigal in 



As It Was 83 

the expenditure of paper, ink, pens, and time. 
The first winter, I splashed two, and the next, 
three writing-books with inky puddle, in learn- 
ing coarse hand ; and, after all, I had gained not 
much in penmanship, except a workmanlike 
assurance and celerity of execution, such as is 
natural to an old hand at the business. 

The third winter, I commenced small hand, 
or rather fine, as it is more technically denomi- 
nated; or rather a copy of half-way dimensions, 
that the change to fine running-hand might not 
be too sudden. From this dwarfish course, or 
giant fine hand, — just as you please to call 
it, — I slid down to the genuine epistolary and 
mercantile, with a capital at the head of the 
line, as much out of proportion as a corpulent 
old captain marching in single file before a 
parade of little boys. 

Some of our teachers were accustomed to 
spend a few minutes, forenoon and afternoon, in 
going round among the writers to see that they 
held the pen properly, and took a decent degree 
of pains. But the majority of them, according to 
present recollections, never stirred from the desk 
to superintend this branch. There was some- 
thing like an excuse, however, for not visiting 
their pupils while at the pen. Sitting as they 
did in those long, narrow, rickety seats, one 



84 The District School 

could hardly be got at without joggling two or 
three others, displacing a writing-book, knock- 
ing over an inkstand, and making a deal of 
rustle, rattle, and racket. 

Some of the teachers set the copies at home 
in the evening, but most set them in school. 
Six hours per day were all that custom required 
of a teacher : of course, half an hour at home 
spent in the matters of the school would have 
been time and labor not paid for, and a gratuity 
not particularly expected. On entering in the 
morning, and looking for the master as the 
object at which to make the customary " man- 
ners," we could perceive just the crown of his 
head beyond a huge stack of manuscripts, which, 
together with his copy-setting attention, pre- 
vented the bowed and courtesied respects from 
his notice. A few of the most advanced in 
penmanship had copper-plate slips, as they were 
called, tucked into their manuscripts, for the 
trial of their more skillful hands ; or, if an or- 
dinary learner had for once done extraordinarily 
well, he was permitted a slip as a mark of merit, 
and a circumstance of encouragement. Some- 
times, when the master was pressed for time, all 
the joining-handers were thus furnished. It 
was a pleasure to have copies of this sort ; 
their polished shades, graceful curves, and deli- 



As It Was 85 

cate hair lines, were so like a picture for the 
eye to dwell upon. But, when we set about 
the work of imitation, discouragement took the 
place of pleasure. " After all, give us the 
master's hand," we thought ; " we can come 
up to that now and then." We despaired of 
ever becoming decent penmen with this copper- 
plate perfection mocking our clumsy fingers. 

There was one item in penmanship which 
our teachers generally omitted altogether. It 
was the art of making and mending pens. I 
suffer, and others on my account suffer, from 
this neglect even at this day. The untraceable 
u partridge tracks," as some one called them, 
with which I perplex my correspondents, and 
am now about to provoke the printer, are 
chargeable to my ignorance in pen-making. It 
is a fact, however some acquaintances may 
doubt it, that I generally write very legibly, if 
not gracefully, whenever I borrow, beg, or 
steal a pen. 

Let not the faithful Wriffbrd, should his eye 
chance to fall on this lament, think that I have 
forgotten his twelve lessons, of one hour each, 
on twelve successive, cold November days, 
when I was just on the eve of commencing 
pedagogue for the first time — (for I, too, have 
kept a district school, in a manner somewhat 



86 The District School 

like " as it was ") — I have not forgotten them. 
He did well for me. But, alas ! his tall form 
bent over my shoulder, his long flexile finger 
adjusted my pen, and his vigilant eye glanced 
his admonitions, in vain. That thirteenth 
lesson which he added gratis, to teach us 
pen-making, I was so unfortunate as to lose. 
Lamentable to me and to many others, that I 
was kept away. 

I blush while I acknowledge it, but I have 
taught school, have taught penmanship, have 
made and mended a hundred pens a day, and 
all the time I knew not much more of the art 
of turning quill into pen, than did the goose 
from whose wing it was plucked. But my 
manufactures were received by my pupils, as 
good. Good, of course, they must be ; for the 
master made them, and who should dare to 
question his competency ? If the instrument 
did not operate well, the fault must certainly 
be in the fingers that wielded, not those that 
wrought it. 



J&~j£-j&-m JL -Jfe—aJk 



As It Was 87 



Chapter XIV 

Seventh Winter, but not Much about it 
— Eighth Winter— Mr. Johnson — 
Good Order, and but Little Punish- 
ing—a Story about Punishing — 
Ninth Winter 

/^\F my seventh winter I have but little to 
^^ say ; for but little was done worthy of 
record here. We had an indolent master and 
an idle school. Some tried to kindle up the 
speaking spirit again ; but the teacher had no 
taste that way. But there was dialoguing 
enough nevertheless — in that form called whis- 
pering. Our school was a theater in earnest ; 
for " plays " were going on all the time. It 
was " acting " to the life, acting anyhow 
rather than like scholars at their books. But 
let that winter and its works, or rather want of 
works, pass. Of the eighth I can say some- 
thing worth notice, I think. 

In consequence of the lax discipline of the 
two last winters, the school had fallen into very 
idle and turbulent habits. "A master that 



88 The District School 

will keep order, a master that will keep order ! " 
was the cry throughout the district. Accord- 
ingly such a one was sought, and fortunately 
found. A certain Mr. Johnson, who had 
taught in a neighboring town, was famous for 
his strictness, and that without much punishing. 
He was obtained at a little higher price than 
usual, and was thought to be well worth the 
price. I will describe his person, and relate an 
incident as characteristic of the man. 

Mr. Johnson was full six feet high, with the 
diameter of his chest and limbs in equal propor- 
tion. His face was long, and as dusky as a 
Spaniard's ; and the dark was still darkened by 
the roots of an enormous beard. His eyes were 
black, and looked floggings and blood from out 
their cavernous sockets, which were overhung 
by eyebrows not unlike brush-heaps. His hair 
was black and curly, and extended down, and 
expanded on each side of his face in a pair of 
whiskers a freebooter might have envied. 

He possessed the longest, widest, and thickest 
ruler I ever saw. This was seldom brandished 
in his hand, but generally lay in sight upon the 
desk. Although he was so famous for his orders 
in school, he scarcely ever had to use his puni- 
tive instrument. His look, bearing, and voice 
were enough for the subjection of the most riot- 



As It Was 89 

ous school. Never was our school so still and 
so studious as this winter. A circumstance oc- 
curred the very first day, which drove every- 
thing like mischief in consternation from every 
scholar's heart. Abijah Wilkins had for years 
been called the worst boy in school. Masters 
could do nothing with him. He was surly, saucy, 
profane, and truthless. Mr. Patch took him from 
an alms-house when he was eight years old, 
which was eight years before the point of time 
now in view. In his family were mended 
neither his disposition, his manners, nor even 
his clothes. He looked like a morose, unpitied 
pauper still. He had shaken his knurly and 
filthy fist in the very face and eyes of the last 
winter's teacher. Mr. Johnson was told of this 
son of perdition before he began, and was pre- 
pared to take some efficient step at his first 
offence. 

Well, the afternoon of the first day, Abijah 
thrust a pin into a boy beside him, which made 
him suddenly cry out with the sharp pain. The 
sufferer was questioned ; Abijah was accused, 
and found guilty. The master requested James 
Clark to go to his room, and bring a rattan he 
would find there, as if the formidable ferule was 
unequal to the present exigency. James came 
with a rattan very long and very elastic, as if it 



9° 



The District School 



had been selected from a thousand, not to walk 
with, but to whip. Then he ordered all the 
blinds next to the road to be closed. He then 
said, " Abijah, come this way." He came. 
" The school may shut their books, and suspend 
their studies a few minutes. Abijah, take off 
your frock, fold it up, lay it on the seat behind 
you." Abijah obeyed these several commands 
with sullen tardiness. Here, a boy up towards 
the back seat burst out with a sort of shuddering 
laugh, produced by a nervous excitement he 
could not control. " Silence ! " said the master, 
with a thunder, and a stamp on the floor that 
made the house quake. All was as still as mid- 
night — not a foot moved, not a seat cracked, 
not a book rustled. The school seemed to be 
appalled. The expression of every countenance 
was changed ; some were unnaturally pale, some 
flushed, and eighty distended and moistened eyes 
were fastened on the scene. The awful expec- 
tation was too much for one poor girl. " May 
I go home ? " she whined with an imploring and 
terrified look. A single glance from the coun- 
tenance of authority crushed the trembler down 
into her seat again. A tremulous sigh escaped 
from one of the larger girls, then all was breath- 
lessly still again. "Take off your jacket also, 
Abijah. Fold it, and lay it on your frock." 



As It Was 91 

Mr. Johnson then took his chair, and set it away 
at the farthest distance the floor would permit, 
as if all the space that could be had would be 
necessary for the operations about to take place. 
He then took the rattan, and seemed to exam- 
ine it closely, drew it through his hand, bent it 
almost double, laid it down again. He then 
took off* his own coat, folded it up, and laid it 
on the desk. Abijah's breast then heaved like 
a bellows, his limbs began to tremble, and his 
face was like a sheet. The master now took 
the rattan in his right hand, and the criminal by 
the collar with his left, his large knuckles press- 
ing hard against the shoulder of the boy. He 
raised the stick high over the shrinking back. 
Then, oh ! what a screech ! Had the rod fallen ? 
No, it still remained suspended in the air. " O 

— I won't do so agin — I'll never do so agin — 
O — O — don't — I will be good — sartinly 
will." The threatening instrument of pain was 
gently taken from its elevation. The master 
spoke : " You promise, do you ? " " Yis, sir, 

— oh! yis, sir." The tight grasp was with- 
drawn from the collar. " Put on your frock 
and jacket, and go to your seat. The rest of 
you may now open your books." The school 
breathed again. Paper rustled, feet were care- 
fully moved, the seats slightly cracked, and all 



9 2 



The District School 



things went stilly on as before. Abijah kept 
his promise. He became an altered boy ; obe- 
dient, peaceable, studious. This long and slow 
process of preparing for the punishment was art- 
fully designed by the master, gradually to work 
up the boy's terrors and agonizing expectations 
to the highest pitch, until he should yield like 
a babe to the intensity of his emotions. His 
stubborn nature, which had been like an oak 
on the hills which no storm could prostrate, was 
whittled away and demolished, as it were, sliver 
by sliver. 

Not Abijah Wilkins only, but the whole 
school were subdued to the most humble and 
habitual obedience by the scene I have described. 
The terror of it seemed to abide in their hearts. 
The school improved much this winter, that is, 
according to the ideas of improvement then pre- 
vailing. Lessons were well gotten, and well 
said, although the why and the wherefore of them 
were not asked or given. 

Mr. Johnson was employed the next winter 
also, and it was the prevailing wish that he 
should be engaged for the third time; but he 
could not be obtained. His reputation as a 
teacher had secured for him a school at twenty 
dollars per month for the year round, in a dis- 
tant village ; so we were never more to sit " as 



As It Was 



93 



still as mice," in his most magisterial presence. 
For years the saying in the district in respect to 
him was, " He was the best master I ever went 
to; he kept such good order, and punished so 
little." 




94 The District School 



Chapter XV 

Going out — making Bows — Boys com- 
ing in — Girls going, out and coming in 

' I V HE young are proverbially ignorant of the 
■** value of time. There is one portion 
of it, however, which they well know how to 
appreciate. They feel it to be a wealth both 
to body and soul. Its few moments are truly 
golden ones, forming a glittering spot amid the 
drossy dullness of in-school duration. I refer 
to the forenoon and afternoon recess for " going 
out." Consider that we came from all the 
freedom of the farm, where we had the sweep 
of acres — hills, valleys, woods, and waters, 
and were crowded, I may say packed, into the 
district box. Each one had scarcely more space 
than would allow him to shift his head from an 
inclination to one shoulder to an inclination to 
the other, or from leaning on the right elbow, 
to leaning on the left. There we were, the 
blood of health bouncing through our veins, 
feeding our strength, swelling our dimensions ; 



As It Was 95 

and there we must stay, three hours on a 
stretch, with the exception of the aforemen- 
tioned recess. No wonder that we should 
prize this brief period high, and rush tumultu- 
ously out doors to enjoy it. 

There is one circumstance in going out which 
so much amuses my recollection that I will 
venture to describe it. It is the making of our 
bows, or manners, as it is called. If one wishes 
to see variety in the doing of a single act, let 
him look at school-boys, leaving their bows at 
the door. Tell me not of the diversities and 
characteristics, of the gentilities and the awk- 
wardnesses in the civility of shaking hands. 
The bow is as diversified and characteristic, as 
awkward or genteel, as any movement many- 
motioned man is called on to make. Especially 
in a country school, where fashion and polite- 
ness have not altered the tendencies of nature 
by forming the manners of all after one model 
of propriety. Besides, the bow was before the 
shake, both in the history of the world, and in 
that of every individual man. No doubt the 
world's first gentleman, nature-taught, declined 
his head in some sort, in saluting for the first 
time the world's first lady, in primitive Eden. 
And no doubt every little boy has been in- 
structed to make a " nice bow," from chubby 



96 The District School 

Cain, Abel, and Seth, down to the mannered 
younglings of the present day. 

Well, then, it is near half-past ten, a.m., but 
seemingly eleven to the impatient youngsters ; 
anticipation rather than reflection, being the 
faculty most in action just now. At last the 
master takes out his watch, and gives a hasty 
glance at the index of the hour. Or, if this 
premonitory symptom does not appear, watch- 
ing eyes can discern the signs of the time in the 
face relaxing itself from severe duty, and in the 
moving lips just assuming that precise form 
necessary to pronounce the sentence of libera- 
tion. Then, make ready, take aim, is at once 
the order of every idler. " The boys may go 
out." The little white heads on the little seat, 
as it is called, are the foremost, having nothing 
in front to impede a straight-forward sally. One 
little nimble-foot is at the door in an instant ; 
and, as he lifts the latch, he tosses off a bow 
over his left shoulder, and is out in a twinkling. 
The next perhaps squares himself towards the 
master with more precision, not having his 
attention divided between opening the door and 
leaving his manners. Next comes the very 
least of the little, just in front of the big-boy 
rush behind him, tap-tapping and tottering along 
the floor, with his finger in his nose; but, in 



As It Was 97 

wheeling from his bow, he blunders head first 
through the door, in his anxiety to get out of 
the way of the impending throng of fists and 
knees behind, in avoiding which he is prostrated 
under the tramp of cowhide. 

Now come the Bigs from behind the writing 
benches. Some of them make a bow with a 
jerk of the head and snap of the neck possi- 
ble only to giddy-brained, oily-jointed boyhood. 
Some, whose mothers are of the precise cast, 
or who have had their manners stiffened at a 
dancing-school, will wait till the throng is a little 
thinned ; and then they will strut out with their 
arms as straight at their sides as if there were no 
such things as elbows, and will let their upper 
person bend upon the middle hinge, as if this 
were the only joint in their frames. Some look 
straight at their toes, as the face descends 
toward the floor. Others strain a glance up at 
the master, displaying an uncommon proportion 
of that beauty of the eye, — the white. Lastly 
come the tenants of the extreme back seat, the 
Anaks of the school. One long-limbed, lank- 
sided, back-bending fellow of twenty is at the 
door at four strides ; he has the proper curve 
already prepared by his ordinary gait, and he has 
nothing to do but swing round towards the mas- 
ter, and his manners are made. Another, whose 



98 The District School 

body is developed in the full proportions of 
manhood, turns himself half way, and just gives 
the slightest inclination of the person. He 
thinks himself too much of a man to make such 
a ridiculous popping of the pate as the younglings 
who have preceded him. Another, with a tread 
that makes the floor tremble, goes straight out 
through the open door, without turning to the 
right or left ; as much as to say, " I am quite too 
old for that business." 

There are two in the short seat at the end 
of the spelling-floor who have almost attained 
to the glorious, or rather vain-glorious age of 
twenty-one. They are perhaps even more aged 
than the venerable Rabbi of the school himself. 
So they respect their years, and put away child- 
ish things, inasmuch as they do not go out as 
their juniors do. One of them sticks to his 
slate. It is his last winter ; and, as he did not 
catch flying time by the forelock, he must cling 
to his heel. The other unpuckers his arith- 
metical brow, puts his pencil between his teeth, 
leans his head on his right palm, with his left 
fingers adjusts his foretop, and then composes 
himself into an amiable gaze upon the fair re- 
mainder of the school. Perhaps his eyes leap at 
once to that damsel of eighteen in the further- 
most seat, who is the secret mistress of his heart. 



As It Was 99 

How still it is in the absence of half the 
limbs and lips of the domain ! That little girl 
who has been buzzing round her lesson like a 
bee round a honey-suckle, off and on by turns, 
is now sipping its sweets, if any sweets there 
be, as closely and stilly as that same bee plunged 
in the bell of the flower. The secret of the 
unwonted silence is, the master knows on which 
side of the aisle to look for noise and mischief 
now. 

It is time for the boys to come in. The 
master raps on the window as a signal. At first 
they scatter in one by one, keeping the door on 
the slam, slam. But soon, in rush the main 
body, pell-mell, rubbing their ears, kicking their 
heels, puffing, panting, wheezing. Impelled by 
the temporary chill, they crowd round the fire, 
regaining the needed warmth as much by the 
exercise of elbows as by the heat of fuel. 
" Take your seats, you that have got warm," 
says the master. No one starts. u Take your 
seats, all of you." Tramp, tramp, how the 
floor trembles again, and the seats clatter. 
There goes an inkstand. Ben pinches Tom 
to let him know that he must go in first. Tom 
stands back; but gives Ben a kick on the shins 
as he passes, to pay for that pinch. 

" The girls may go out." The noise and 



IOO 



The District School 



confusion are now of the feminine gender. 
Trip, trip, rustle, rustle. Shall I describe the 
diversities of the courtesy ? I could pen a trait 
or two, but prefer to leave the subject to the 
more discriminating quill of the courtesying 
sex. The shrill tones and gossiping chatter 
of girlhood now ring from without. But they 
do not stay long. Trip, trip, rustle, rustle back 
again. Half of them are sucking a lump of 
snow for drink. One has broken an icicle from 
the well-spout, and is nibbing it as she would 
a stick of candy. See Sarah jump. The ice- 
eater's cold, dripping hand has mischievously 
sprinkled her neck. Down goes the melting 
little cone, and is scattered in shivers. " Take 
your seats," says authority with soft command. 
He is immediately obeyed; and the dull routine 
rolls on toward noon. 




As It Was 101 



Chapter XVI 

Noon — Noise and Dinner — Sports at 
School — Coasting — Snow-balling — a 
Certain Memorable Snow-ball Battle 

TWTOON has come. It is even half-past 
*~ ^ twelve ; for the teacher got puzzled with 
a hard sum, and did not attend to the second 
reading of the first class so soon as usual by 
half an hour. It has been hitch, hitch — joggle, 
joggle — creak, creak, all over the school-room 
for a considerable time. " You are dismissed," 
comes at last. The going out of half the 
school only was a noisy business ; but now 
there is a tenfold thunder, augmented by the 
windy rush of many petticoats. All the voices 
of all the tongues now split or rather shatter 
the air, if I may so speak. There are more 
various tones than could be indicated by all the 
epithets ever applied to sound. 

The first manual operation is the extracting 
of certain parcels from pockets, bags, baskets, 
hat-crowns, and perhaps the capacious cavity 
formed by the tie of a short open frock. Then 



102 The District School 

what a savory development, — bread, cheese, 
cakes, pies, sausages, and apples without num- 
ber ! It is voice versus appetite now for the 
occupancy of the mouth. 

The case is soon decided, that is, dinner is 
dispatched. Then commences what, in view 
of most of us, is the chief business of the day. 
Before describing this, however, I would pre- 
mise a little. The principal allurement and 
prime happiness of going to school, as it used 
to be conducted, was the opportunity it afforded 
for social amusement. Our rural abodes were 
scattered generally a half or a quarter of a mile 
apart, and the young could not see each other 
every day as conveniently as they can in a city 
or a village. The schooling season was there- 
fore looked forward to as one long series of 
holidays, or, as Mark Martin once said, as so 
many thanksgiving days, except the music, the 
sermon, and the dinner. Mark Martin, let me 
mention by the way, was the wit of the school. 
Some of his sayings, that made us laugh at the 
time, I shall hereafter put down. They may 
not afFect the reader, however, as they did us, 
for the lack of his peculiar manner which set 
them ofF. 

Of all the sportive exercises of the winter 
school, the most exhilarating, indeed intensely 



As It Was 103 

delightful, was sliding down hill, or coasting, as 
it is called. The location of our school was 
uncommonly favorable for this diversion. Situ- 
ated as we were on a hill, we could go down 
like arrows for the eighth of a mile on one side, 
and half that distance on the other. Almost 
every boy had his sled. Some of us got our 
names branded on the vehicle, and prided our- 
selves in the workmanship or the swiftness of 
it, as mariners do in that of a ship. We used 
to personify the dear little speeder with a she 
and a her, seamanlike also. Take it when a 
few days of severely cold and clear weather have 
permitted the road to be worn icy smooth, and 
the careering little coaster is the most enviable 
pleasure-rider that was ever eager to set out or 
sorry to stop. The very tugging up hill back 
again, is not without its pleasure. The change 
of posture is agreeable, and also the stir of limb 
and stretch of muscle for the short time required 
to return to the starting place. Then there is 
the looking forward to the glorious down hill 
again. In all the pleasures of human experi- 
ence, there is nothing like coasting, for the 
regular alternation of glowing anticipation and 
frame-thrilling enjoyment. 

Another sport which comes only with the 
winter, and is enjoyed mostly at school is the 



104 The District School 

chivalrous pastime of snow-balling. Take, for 
instance, the earliest snow of winter, falling 
gently and stilly with its feathery flakes, of just 
the right moisture for easy manipulation. Or 
when the drifts soften in the mid-winter thaw, 
or begin to settle beneath the lengthened and 
sunny days of March, then is the season for the 
power and glory of a snow-ball fight. The 
whole school of the martial sex are out of a 
noon-time, from the veterans of a hundred bat- 
tles down almost to the freshest recruits of the 
little front seat. Half against half, unless a 
certain number agree to " take " all the rest. 
The oldest are opposed to the oldest in the 
hostile array, so that the little round, and per- 
haps hard, missile may not be out of proportion 
to the age, size, and toughness of the antagonist 
likely to be hit. The little boys, of course, 
against the little, with this advantage, that their 
discharges lose most of their force before reach- 
ing the object aimed at. When one is hit, he 
is not merely wounded ; he is a dead man as to 
this battle. Here, no quarter is asked or given. 
The balls whistle, the men fall, until all are 
defunct but one or two individuals, who remain 
unkilled because there is no enemy left to hurl 
the fatal ball. 

But our conflicts were not always make- 






As It Was 105 

believes, and conducted according to the formal 
rules of play : these sham-fights sometimes 
waxed into the very reality of war. 

The school was about equally divided between 
the East and the West ends of the district. 
From time immemorial there had come down 
a rivalry between the two parties in respect to 
physical activity and strength. At the close of 
the school in the afternoon, and at the parting 
of the scholars on their different ways toward 
home, there were almost always a few farewells 
in the form of a sudden trip-up, a dab of snow, 
or an icy-ball almost as tenderly soft and agree- 
able of contact as that mellow thing — a stone. 
These valedictories were as courteously recipro- 
cated from the other side. 

These slight skirmishes would sometimes 
grow into a general battle, when the arm was 
not careful to proportion the force just so as to 
touch and no more, as in a noon-day game. 

One battle I recollect, which is worthy of 
being commemorated in a book, at least a book 
about boyhood, like this. It is as fresh before 
my mind's eye as if it were but yesterday. 

It had gently but steadily snowed all one 
December night, and almost all the next day. 
Owing to the weather, there were no girls ex- 
cepting Capt. Clark's two, and no very small 



io6 The District School 

boys, at school. The scholars had been unusu- 
ally playful through the day, and had taken lib- 
erties which would not have been tolerated in 
the full school. 

When we were dismissed at night, the snow 
had done falling, and the ammunition of just 
the right moisture lay in exhaustless abundance 
on the ground, all as level as a floor ; for there 
had been no wind to distribute unequally the 
gifts of the impartial clouds. The first boy 
that sprang from the threshold caught up a 
quart of the spotless but viscid material, and 
whitewashed the face of the next one at the 
door, who happened to belong to the rival side. 
This was a signal for general action. As fast 
as the troops poured out, they rushed to the 
conflict. We had not the coolness deliberately 
to arrange ourselves in battle-order, line against 
line ; but each aimed at each as he could, no 
matter whom, how, or where, provided that he 
belonged to the " other End." We did not 
round the snow into shape, but hurled and 
dashed it in large masses, as we happened to 
snatch or scoop it up. As the combatants in 
gunpowder war are hidden from each other by 
clouds of their own raising, so also our warriors 
clouded themselves from sight. And there were 
other obstacles to vision besides the discharges 



As It Was 107 

in the air; for one, or both of the eyes of us 
all were glued up and sealed in darkness by the 
damp, sticky matter. The nasal and auditory 
cavities too were temporarily closed. And here 
and there a mouth, opening after a little breath, 
received the same snowy visitation. 

At length, from putting snow into each other, 
we took to putting each other into the snow. 
Not by the formal and deliberate wrestle, but 
pell-mell, hurly-burly, as foot, hand, or head 
could find an advantage. The combatants were 
covered with the clinging element. It was as 
if their woolen habiliments had turned back to 
their original white. So completely were we all 
besmeared by the same material, that we could 
not tell friend from foe in the blind encounter. 
No matter for this ; we were now crazed with 
fun ; and we were ready to carry it to the ut- 
most extent that time and space and snow would 
admit. Just opposite the school-house door, the 
hill descended very steeply from the road for 
about ren rods. The stone wall just here was 
quite low, and completely covered with snow 
even before this last fall. The two stoutest 
champions of the fray had been snowing it into 
each other like storm-spirits from the two op- 
posite poles. At length, as if their snow-bolts 
were exhausted, they seized each other for the 



108 The District School 

tug of muscle with muscle. They had uncon- 
sciously worked themselves to the precipitous 
brink. Another stout fellow caught a glimpse 
of their position, gave a rush and a push, and 
both Arctic and Antarctic went tumbling heels 
hindmost down the steep declivity, until they 
were stopped by the new-fallen snow in which 
they were completely buried ; and one with his 
nose downward as if he had voluntarily dived 
into his own grave. This was a signal for a 
general push-off, and the performer of the sud- 
den exploit was the first to be gathered to his 
victims below. In five minutes, all were in the 
same predicament but one, who, not finding 
himself attacked, wiped the plaster from his 
eyes, and saw himself the lone hero of the field. 
He gave a victorious shout ; then, not liking 
solitude for a playmate, he made a dauntless 
leap after the rest, who were now thickly rising 
from their snowy burial to life, action, and fun 
anew. Now the game is to put each other 
down, down, to the bottom of the hill. There 
is pulling, pushing, pitching, and whirling, every 
species of manual attack, except the pugilistic 
thump and knock-down. One long lubber has 
fallen exactly parallel with the bottom ; and, 
before he can recover himself, two others are 
rolling him down like a senseless log, until the 



As It Was 



109 



lumberers themselves are pitched head first over 
their timber by other hands still behind them. 
But at length we are all at the bottom of the 
hill, and indeed at the bottom of our strength. 
Which End, the East or the West, had the day, 
could not be determined. In one sense it be- 
longed to neither, for it was night. We now 
found ourselves in a plight not particularly com- 
fortable to ourselves, nor likely to be very agree- 
able to the domestic guardians we must now 
meet. But the battle has been described, and 
that is enough: there is no glory in the suffer- 
ing that succeeds. 




no The District Sch 



OOJ 



Chapter XVII 

Arithmetic — Commencement — Progress 
— Late Improvement in the Art of 
Teaching 

A T the age of twelve, I commenced the 
-*- *■ study of Arithmetic, that chiefest of sci- 
ences in Yankee estimation. No man is willing 
that his son should be without skill in figures. 
And if he does not teach him his A B C at home, 
he will the art of counting, at least. Many 
a father deems it no hardship to instruct his 
child to enumerate even up to a hundred, when 
it would seem beyond his capacity, or certainly 
beyond the leisure of his rainy days and winter 
evenings, to sit down with the formality of a 
book, and teach him to read. 

The entering on arithmetic was quite an era 
in my school-boy life. This was placing me 
decidedly among the great boys, and within 
hailing distance of manhood. My feelings were 
consequently considerably elevated. A new 
Adams's Arithmetic of the latest edition was 
bought for my use. It was covered by the 



As It Was in 

maternal hand with stout sheepskin, in the 
economical expectation, that, after I had done 
with it, it might help still younger heads to the 
golden science. A quire of foolscap was made 
to take the form of a manuscript of the full 
length of the sheet, with a pasteboard cover, as 
more suitable to the dignity of such superior 
dimensions than flimsy brown paper. 

I had also a bran new slate, for Ben used 
father's old one. It was set in a frame wrought 
by the aforesaid Ben, who prided himself on 
his knack at tools, considering that he had 
never served an apprenticeship at their use. 
There was no lack of timber in the fabrication. 
Mark Martin said that he could make a better 
frame with a jack-knife in his left hand, and 
keep his right in his pocket. 

My first exercise was transcribing from my 
Arithmetic to my manuscript. At the top of the 
first page I penned ARITHMETIC, in capitals 
an inch high, and so broad that this one word 
reached entirely across the page. At a due 
distance below, I wrote the word Addition in 
large, coarse hand, beginning with a lofty A, 
which seemed like the drawing of a mountain 
peak, towering above the level wilderness below. 
Then came Rule, in a little smaller hand, so 
that there was a regular gradation from the 



1 1 2 The District School 

enormous capitals at the top, down to the fine 
running — no, hobbling hand in which I wrote 
off the rule. 

Now slate and pencil and brain came into 
use. I met with no difficulty at first ; Simple 
Addition was as easy as counting my fingers. 
But there was one thing I could not understand 
— that carrying of tens. It was absolutely 
necessary, I perceived, in order to get the 
right answer ; yet it was a mystery which that 
arithmetical oracle, our schoolmaster, did not 
see fit to explain. It is possible that it was 
a mystery to him. Then came Subtraction. 
The borrowing of ten was another unaccount- 
able operation. The reason seemed to me then 
at the very bottom of the well of science ; and 
there it remained for that winter, for no friendly 
bucket brought it up to my reach. 

Every rule was transcribed to my manuscript, 
and each sum likewise as it stood proposed in 
the book, and also the whole process of figures 
by which the answer was found. 

Each rule, moreover, was, or rather was to be, 
committed to memory, word for word, which 
to me was the most tedious and difficult job 
of the whole. 

I advanced as far as Reduction this first 
winter, and a third through my manuscript, 



As It Was 113 

perhaps. The end of the Arithmetic seemed 
almost as far off in the future as that end of 
boyhood and under-age restraint, twenty-one. 

The next winter I began at Addition again, 
to advance just through Interest. My third 
season I went over the same ground again, and, 
besides that, ciphered to the very last sum in 
the Rule of Three. This was deemed quite 
an achievement for a lad only fourteen years 
old, according to the ideas prevailing at that 
period. Indeed, whoever ciphered through the 
above-mentioned rule was supposed to have 
arithmetic enough for the common purposes 
of life. If one proceeded a few rules beyond 
this, he was considered quite smart. But if he 
went clear through — Miscellaneous Questions 
and all — he was thought to have an extraordi- 
nary taste and genius for figures. Now and 
then, a youth, after having been through 
Adams, entered upon old Pike, the arithmeti- 
cal sage who " set the sums " for the pre- 
ceding generation. Such were called great 
" arithmeticians." 

The fourth winter I advanced — but it is 
not important to the purpose of this work 
that I should record the minutiae of my progress 
in the science of numbers. Suffice it to say, 
that I was not one of the u great at figures." 



ii4 The District School 

The female portion of the school, we may 
suppose, generally expected to obtain husbands 
to perform whatever arithmetical operations they 
might need, beyond the counting of fingers : so 
the science found no special favor with them. 
If pursued at all, it was neglected till the last 
year or two of their schooling. Most were 
provident enough to cipher as far as through 
the four simple rules ; for although they had no 
idea of becoming old maids, they might possi- 
bly, however, be left widows. Had arithmetic 
been pursued at the summer school, those who 
intended to be summer teachers would probably 
have thought more of the science, and have pro- 
ceeded further, even perhaps to the Rule of 
Three. But a schoolmistress would as soon 
have expected to teach the Arabic language as 
the numerical science. So, ignorance of it was 
no dishonor even to the first and best of the 
sex. 




As It Was 115 



Chapter XVIII 

Augustus Starr, the Privateer who 
turned Pedagogue — his New Crew 
mutiny, and perform a Singular Ex- 
ploit 

1\ /TY tenth winter, our school was put under 
-*-*-*- the instruction of a person named 
Augustus Starr. He was a native of a neigh- 
boring town, and was acquainted with the com- 
mittee. He had taught school some years be- 
fore, but of late had been engaged in a business 
not particularly conducive to improvement in the 
art of teaching. He had been an inferior officer 
aboard a privateer in the late war, which termi- 
nated the previous winter. At the return of 
peace, he betook himself to land; and, till some- 
thing more suitable to his tastes and habits 
should offer, he concluded to resume school- 
keeping, at least for one winter. 

He came to our town; and, finding an old 
acquaintance seeking for a teacher, he offered 
himself, and was accepted. He was rather gen- 
teelly dressed, and gentlemanly in his manners. 



n6 The District School 

Mr. Starr soon manifested that stern com- 
mand, rather than mild persuasion, had been 
his method of preserving order, and was to be, 
still. This would have been put up with ; but 
he soon showed that he could deal in blows as 
well as words, and these not merely with the 
customary ferule, or supple and tingling stick, 
but with whatever came to hand. He knocked 
one lad down with his fist, hurled a stick 
of wood at another, which missed breaking 
his head because it struck the ceiling, mak- 
ing a dent which fearfully indicated what 
would have been the consequence had the 
skull been hit. The scholars were terrified, 
parents were alarmed, and some kept their 
younger children at home. There was an up- 
roar in the district. A school-meeting was 
threatened for the purpose of dismissing the 
captain, as he began to be called, in reference 
to the station he had lately filled, although it 
was not a captaincy. But he commanded the 
school-house crew : so, in speaking of him, 
they gave him a corresponding title. In con- 
sequence of these indications, our officer be- 
came less dangerous in his modes of punish- 
ment, and was permitted to continue still in 
command. But he was terribly severe, never- 
theless ; and in his words of menace, he mani- 



As It Was 117 

fested no particular respect for that one of the 
ten commandments which forbids profanity. 
But he took pains with his pupils, and they 
made considerable progress according to the 
prevailing notions of education. 

Toward the close of the school, however, 
Starr's fractious temper, his cuffs, thumps, and 
cudgelings, waxed dangerous again. There 
were signs of mutiny among the large scholars, 
and there were provocations and loud talk 
among parents. The man of violence, even at 
this late period, would have been dismissed by 
the authority of the district, had not a sudden 
and less formal ejection overtaken him. 

The captain had been outrageously severe, 
and even cruel, to some of the smaller boys. 
The older brothers of the sufferers, with others 
of the back seat, declared among themselves, 
that they would put him by force out of the 
school-house, if anything of the like should 
happen again. The very afternoon succeeding 
this resolution, an opportunity offered to put it 
to the test. John Howe, for some trifling mis- 
demeanor, received a cut with the edge of the 
ruler on his head, which drew blood. The 
dripping wound and the scream of the boy 
were a signal for action, as if a murderer were 
at his fell deed before their eyes. Thomas 



1 1 8 The District School 

Howe, one of the oldest in the school and the 
brother of the abused, and Mark Martin, were 
at the side of our privateer in an instant. Two 
others followed. His ruler was wrested from 
his hand, and he was seized by his legs and 
shoulders, before he could scarcely think into 
what hands he had fallen. He was carried, 
kicking and swearing, out of doors. But this 
was not the end of his headlong and horizontal 
career. " To the side hill, to the side hill," 
cried Mark, who had him by the head. Now 
it so happened that the hillside opposite the 
school-house door was crusted, and as smooth 
and slippery as pure ice, from a recent rain. 
To this pitch, then, he was borne, and in all 
the haste that his violent struggles would per- 
mit. Over he was thrust, as if he were a log; 
and down he went, giving one of his bearers a 
kick as he was shoved from their hands, which 
action of the foot sent him more swiftly on his 
way from the rebound. There was no bush or 
stone to catch by in his descent, and he clawed 
the unyielding crust with his nails, for the want 
of anything more prominent on which to lay 
hold. Down, down he went. Oh for a pile 
of stones, or a thicket of thorns to cling to, 
even at the expense of torn apparel or scratched 
lingers ! Down, down he went, until he fairly 



As It Was 119 

came to the climax, or rather anti-climax, of 
his pedagogical career. 

When our master had come to a " period or 
full stop," to quote from the spelling-book, he 
lay a moment as if he had left his breath 
behind him, or as if querying whether he should 
consider himself alive or not ; or perhaps 
whether it were really his own honorable self 
who had been voyaging in this unseamanlike 
fashion, or somebody else. He at length arose 
and stood upright, facing the ship of literature 
which he had lately commanded ; and his mu- 
tinous crew, great and small, male and female, 
now lining the side of the road next to the 
declivity, from which most of them had wit- 
nessed his expedition. The movement had 
been so sudden, and the ejection so unantici- 
pated by the school in general, that they were 
stupefied with amazement. And the bold per- 
formers of the exploit were almost as much 
amazed as the rest, excepting Mark, who still 
retained coolness enough for his joke. " What 
think of the coasting trade, captain ? " shouted 
Mark; "is it as profitable as privateering?" 
Our coaster made no reply, but turned in pur- 
suit of a convenient footing to get up into the 
road, and to the school-house again. While 
he was at a distance approaching his late station 



120 The District School 

of command, Mark Martin stepped forward to 
hold a parley with him. " We have a word to 
say to you, sir, before you come much farther. 
If you will come back peaceably, you may 
come ; but as sure as you meddle with any of 
us, we will make you acquainted with the heft 
and the hardness of our fists, and of stones and 
clubs too, if we must. The ship is no longer 
yours ; so look out, for we are our own men 
now." Starr replied, " I do not wish to have 
anything more to do with the school; but 
there is another law besides club law, and that 
you have got to take." But when he came up 
and saw John Howe's face stained with blood, 
and his head bound up as if it had received the 
stroke of a cutlass, he began to look rather 
blank. Our spokesman reminded him of what 
he had done, and inquired, " which is the 
worse, a ride and a slide, or a gashed head ? " 
" I rather guess that you are the one to look 
out for the law," said Thomas Howe, with a 
threatening tone and look. Whether this hint 
had effect, I know not, but he never com- 
menced a prosecution. He gathered up his 
goods and chattels, and left the school-house. 
The scholars gathered up their implements of 
learning, and left likewise, after the boys had 
taken one more glorious slide down hill. 



As It Was 



121 



There were both gladness and regret in that 
dispersion; — gladness that they had no more 
broken heads, shattered hands, and skinned 
backs to fear; and regret that the season of 
schooling, and of social and delightful play, had 
been cut short by a week. 

The news reached most of the district in the 
course of the next day, that our " man of war," 
as he was sometimes called, had sailed out of 
port the night before. 




122 The District School 



Chapter XIX 

Eleventh Winter — Mr. Silverson, our 
First Teacher from College — his Blun- 
der at Meeting on the Sabbath — his 
Character as a Schoolmaster 

/ ~T A HIS winter, Major Allen was the commit- 
-■- tee; and, of course, everybody expected 
a dear master, if not a good one ; he had always 
expressed himself so decidedly against " your 
cheap trash." They were not disappointed. 
They had a dear master, high priced and not 
much worth. Major Allen sent to college for 
an instructor, as a young gentleman from such 
an institution must of course be qualified as to 
learning, and would give a higher tone to the 
school. He had good reason for the expecta- 
tion, as a gentleman from the same institution 
had taught the two preceding winters in 
another town where Major Allen was inti- 
mately acquainted, and gave the highest satis- 
faction. But he was a very different sort of 
person from Mr. Frederic Silverson, of the city 
of , member of the junior class in 



As It Was 123 

College. This young gentleman did not teach 
eight weeks, at eighteen dollars per month, for 
the sake of the trifling sum to pay his college 
bills, and help him to rub a little more easily 
through. He kept for fun, as he told his fellow 
bucks ; that is, to see the fashions of country 
life, to " cut capers " among folks whose opinion 
he didn't care for, and to bring back something 
to laugh about all the next term. The money, 
too, was a consideration, as it would pay a bill 
or two which he preferred that his very indul- 
gent father should not know of. 

Major Allen had written to some of the col- 
lege authorities for an instructor, not doubting 
that he should obtain one of proved worth, or 
at least one who had been acquainted with 
country schools in his boyhood, and would 
undertake with such motives as would insure 
a faithful discharge of his duties. But a tutor, 
an intimate acquaintance of Silverson's family, 
was requested to aid the self-rusticating son to 
a school ; so by this means this city beau and 
college buck was sent to preside over our dis- 
trict seminary of letters. 

Well, Mr. Silverson arrived on Saturday even- 
ing at Capt. Clark's. Sunday, he went to meet- 
ing. He was, indeed, a very genteel-looking 
personage, and caused quite a sensation among 



124 The District School 

the young people in our meeting-house, espe- 
cially those of our district. He was tall, but 
rather slender, with a delicate skin, and a cheek 
whose roses had not been uprooted from their 
native bed by what, in college, is called hard 
digging. His hair was cut and combed in the 
newest fashion, as was supposed, being arranged 
very differently from that of our young men. 
Then he wore a cloak of many-colored plaid, 
in which flaming red, however, was predomi- 
nant. A plaid cloak — this was a new thing in 
our obscure town at that period, and struck us 
with admiration. We had seen nothing but 
surtouts and greatcoats from our fathers' sheep 
and our mothers' looms. His cravat was tied 
behind ; this was another novelty. We had 
never dreamed but that the knot should be 
made, and the ends should dangle beneath the 
chin. Then his bosom flourished with a ruffle, 
and glistened with a breast-pin, such as were 
seldom seen so far among the hills. 

Capt. Clark unconsciously assumed a stateli- 
ness of gait unusual to him, as he led the way 
up the center aisle, introduced the gentleman 
into his pew, and gave him his own seat, that 
is, next the isle, and the most respectable in the 
pew. The young gentleman, not having been 
accustomed to such deference in public, was a 



As It Was 125 

little confused ; and when he heard, " That is 
the new master," whispered very distinctly by 
some one near, and, on looking up, saw himself 
the center of an all-surrounding stare, he was 
smitten with a fit of bashfulness, such as he had 
never felt before. So he quiddled with his fin- 
gers, sucked and bit his lips, as a relief to his 
feelings, the same as those rustic starers would 
have done at a splendid party in his mother's 
drawing-rooms. During singing, he was intent 
on the hymn-book, in the prayer he bent over 
the pew-side, and during the sermon looked 
straight at the preacher — a churchlike deport- 
ment which he had never, perhaps, manifested 
before, and probably may never have since. He 
was certainly not so severely decorous in that 
meeting-house again. After the forenoon ser- 
vices, he committed a most egregious blunder, 
by which his bashfulness was swallowed up in 
shame. It was the custom in country towns 
then, for all who sat upon the center or broad 
aisle, as it was called, to remain in their pews 
till the reverend man of the pulpit had passed 
along by. Our city-bred gentleman was not 
apprised of this etiquette ; for it did not prevail 
in the metropolis. Well, as soon as the last 
amen was pronounced, Capt. Clark politely 
handed him his hat ; and, being next to the pew 



126 The District School 

door, he supposed he must make his egress first. 
He stepped out, and had gone several feet down 
the aisle, when he observed old and young stand- 
ing in their pews on both sides, in front of his 
advance, staring at him as if surprised, and some 
of them with an incipient laugh. He turned his 
head, and gave a glance back; and, behold, he 
was alone in the long avenue, with a double line 
of eyes aimed at him from behind as well as 
before. All seemed waiting for the minister, 
who by this time had just reached the foot of 
the pulpit stairs. He was confounded with a 
consciousness of his mistake. Should he keep 
on or return to the pew, was a momentary 
question. It was a dilemma worse than any 
in logic. But finally, back he was going, when, 
behold, Capt. Clark's pew was blocked up by 
the out-poured and out-pouring throng of people, 
with the minister at their head. What should 
he do now ? He wheeled again, dropped his 
head, put his left hand to his face, and went 
crouching down the aisle, and out of the door, 
like a boy going out with the nose-bleed. 

On the ensuing morning, our collegian com- 
menced school. He had never taught, and had 
never resided in the country before. He had 
acquired a knowledge of the daily routine usu- 
ally pursued in school, from a class-mate who 



As It Was 127 

had some experience in the vocation ; so he 
began things right end foremost, and finished at 
the other extremity in due order; but they were 
most clumsily handled all the way through. 
His first fault was exceeding indolence. He 
had escaped beyond the call of the morning 
prayer-bell, that had roused him at dawn, and 
he seemed resolved to replenish his nature with 
sleep. He was generally awakened to the con- 
sciousness*of being a schoolmaster by the ringing 
shouts of his waiting pupils. Then a country 
breakfast was too delicious a contrast to college 
commons to be cut short. Thus that point of 
duration called nine o'clock, and school time, 
often approximated exceedingly near to ten that 
winter. 

Mr. Silverson did not visit in the several 
families of the district, as most of his predeces- 
sors had done. He would have been pleased to 
visit at every house, for he was socially inclined ; 
and what was more, he desired to pick up cc food 
for fun " when he should return to college. 
But the people did not think themselves "smart" 
enough to entertain a collegian, and the son of 

the rich Mr. , of the city of , besides. 

Or, perhaps, what is coming nearer the precise 
truth, his habits and pursuits were so different 
from theirs, that they did not know exactly how 



ii8 The District School 

to get at him, and in what manner to attempt 
to entertain him ; and he, on the other hand, did 
not know how to fall into the train of their asso- 
ciations in his conversation, so as to make them 
feel at ease, and, as it were, at home with him. 
Another circumstance ought to be mentioned, 
perhaps. The people very soon contracted a 
growing prejudice against our schoolmaster, on 
account of his very evident unfitness for his 
present vocation, and especially his unpardon- 
able indolence and neglect of duty. 

So Mr. Silverson was not invited out, except- 
ing by Major Allen, who engaged him, and by 
two or three others who chanced to come in 
contact with him, and to find him more sociably 
disposed, and a less formidable personage, than 
they anticipated. He spent most of his even- 
ings, therefore, at his boarding-place, with one 
volume in his hand, generally that of a novel, 
and another volume issuing from his mouth, — 
that of smoke; and as his chief object was just 
to kill time, he was not careful that the former 
should not be as fumy, as baseless, and as un- 
profitable as the latter. As for the Greek, 
Latin, and mathematics, to which he should 
have devoted some portion of his time, accord- 
ing to the college regulations, he never looked 
at them till his return. Then he just glanced 



As It Was 



129 



them over, and trusted luck when he was exam- 
ined for two weeks' study, as he had done a 
hundred times before at his daily recitation. 

What our young college buck carried back 
to laugh about all the next term, I do not 
know, unless it was his own dear self, for 
being so foolish as to undertake a business for 
which he was so utterly unfit, and from which 
he derived so little pleasure, compared with his 
anticipations. 




130 



The District School 



Chapter XX 

A College Master again — his Character 
in School and out — our First At- 
tempts at Composition — Brief Sketch 
of Another Teacher 

1\ /FY twelfth winter has arrived. It was 
-*-"-*• thought best to try a teacher from col- 
lege again, as the committee had been assured 
that there were teachers to be found there of 
the first order, and well worth the high price 
they demanded for their services. A Mr. Ellis 
was engaged at twenty dollars per month, from 
the same institution mentioned before. Par- 
ticular pains were taken to ascertain the college 
character, and the school-keeping experience of 
the gentleman, before his engagement, and they 
were such as to warrant the highest expecta- 
tions. 

The instructor was to board round in the 
several families of the district, who gave 
the board an order to lengthen the school 
to the usual term. It happened that he was 
to be at our house the first week. On Satur- 



As It Was 131 

day Mr. Ellis arrived. It was a great event to 
us children for the master to stop at our house, 
and one from college too. We were smitten 
with bashfulness, and stiffened into an awkward- 
ness unusual with us, even among strangers. 
But this did not last long. Our guest put us 
all at ease very soon. He seemed just like one 
of us, or like some unpuffed-up uncle from gen- 
teeler life, who had dropped in upon us for a 
night, with cordial heart, chatty tongue, and 
merry laugh. He seemed perfectly acquainted 
with our prevailing thoughts and feelings, and 
let his conversation slide into the current they 
flowed in, as easily as if he had never been 
nearer college than we ourselves. With my 
father he talked about the price of produce, the 
various processes and improvements in agri- 
culture, and the politics of the day, and such 
other topics as would be likely to interest a 
farmer so far in the country. And those 
topics, indeed, were not a few. Some students 
would have sat in dignified or rather dumpish 
silence, and have gone to bed by mid-evening, 
simply because those who sat with them could 
not discourse on those deep things of science, 
and lofty matters of literature, which were par- 
ticularly interesting to themselves. With my 
mother Mr. Ellis talked at first about her 



132 The District School 

children. He patted a little brother on his 
cheek, took a sister on his knee, and inquired 
the baby's name. Then he drew forth a 
housewifely strain concerning various matters 
in country domestic life. Of me he inquired 
respecting my studies at school years past ; and 
even condescended to speak of his own boyhood 
and youth, and of the sports as well as the duties 
of school. The fact is, that Mr. Ellis had 
always lived in the country till three years 
past ; his mind was full of rural remembrances ; 
and he knew just how to take us to be agree- 
able himself, and to elicit entertainment in 
return. 

Mr. Ellis showed himself at home in school, 
as well as at the domestic fireside. He was 
perfectly familiar with his duties, as custom had 
prescribed them, but he did not abide altogether 
by the old usages. He spent much time in 
explaining those rules in arithmetic and gram- 
mar, and those passages in the spelling-book, 
with which we had hitherto lumbered our 
memories. 

This teacher introduced a new exercise into 
our school, that we had never thought of before 
as being possible to ourselves. It was compo- 
sition. We hardly knew what to make of it. 
To write — to put sentence after sentence like 



As It Was l 33 

a newspaper, a book, or a sermon — oh! we 
could not do this ; we could not think of such 
a thing ; indeed, it was an impossibility. But 
we must try, at any rate. The subject given 
out for this novel use of thought and pen was 
friendship. Friendship — what had we to say 
on this subject ? We could feel on it, perhaps, 
especially those of us who had read a novel 
or two, and had dreamed of eternal friendship. 
But we had not a single idea. Friendship ! oh! 
it is a delightful thing! This, or something 
similar, was about all we poor creatures could 
think of. What a spectacle of wretchedness 
did we present ! A stranger would have sup- 
posed us all smitten with the toothache, by the 
agony expressed in the face. One poor girl 
put her head down into a corner, and cried 
till the master excused her. And, finally, find- 
ing that neither smiles nor frowns would put 
ideas into our heads, he let us go for that 

week. 

In about a fortnight, to our horror, the exer- 
cise was proposed again. But it was only to 
write a letter. Any one could do as much as 
this, the master said ; for almost every one had 
occasion to do it in the course of life. Indeed, 
we thought, on the whole, that we could write a 
letter, so at it we went with considerable alacrity. 



J 34 



The District School 



But our attempts at the epistolary were nothing 
like those spirited, and even witty, products of 
thought which used ever to be flying from seat 
to seat in the shape of billets. The sprightly 
fancy and the gushing heart seemed to have 
been chilled and deadened by the reflection that 
a letter must be written, and the master must see 
it. These epistolary compositions generally be- 
gan, continued, and closed all in the same way, 
as if all had got the same receipt from their 
grandmothers for letter writing. They mostly 
commenced in this manner : " Dear friend, I 
take my pen in hand to inform you that I am 
well, and hope you are enjoying the same bless- 
ing." Then there would be added, perhaps, 
" We have a very good schoolmaster ; have you 
a good one ? How long has your school got to 
keep ? We have had a terribly stormy time 
on't," &c. Mark Martin addressed the master 
in his epistle. What its contents were I could 
not find out ; but I saw Mr. Ellis read it. At 
first he looked grave, as at the assurance of the 
youth; then a little severe, as if his dignity 
was outraged ; but in a moment he smiled, and 
finally he almost burst out with laughter at some 
closing witticism. 

Mark's was the only composition that had 
any nature and soul in it. He wrote what he 



As It Was 135 

thought, instead of thinking what to write, like 
the rest of us, who, in the effort, thought just 
nothing at all ; for we wrote words which we 
had seen written a hundred times before. 

Mr. Ellis succeeded in delivering us from our 
stale and flat formalities before he had done. 
He gave us no more such abstract and lack-idea 
subjects as friendship. Fie learned better how 
to accommodate the theme to the youthful mind. 
We were set to describe what we had seen with 
our eyes, heard with our ears, and what had 
particularly interested our feelings at one time 
and another. One boy described the process 
of cider-making. Another gave an account of a 
squirrel-hunt; another of a great husking; each 
of which had been witnessed the autumn before. 
The girls described certain domestic operations. 
One, I remember, gave quite an amusing account 
of the coming and going, and final tarrying, of 
her mother's soap. Another penned a sprightly 
dialogue, supposed to have taken place between 
two sisters on the question, which should go a 
visiting with mother, and which should stay at 
home and " take care of the things." 

The second winter (for he taught two), Mr. 
Ellis occasionally proposed more abstract sub- 
jects, and such as required more thinking and 
reasoning, but still, such as were likely to be 



136 The District School 

interesting, and on which he knew his scholars 
to possess at least a few ideas. 

I need not say how popular Mr. Ellis was in 
the district. He was decidedly the best school- 
master I ever went to, and he was the last. 

I have given him a place here, not because 
he is to be classed with his predecessors who 
taught the district school as it zvas, but because 
he closed the series of my own instructors 
there, and was the last, moreover, who occupied 
the old school-house. He commenced a new 
era in our district. 

Before closing, I must give one necessary 
hint. Let it not be inferred from this narrative 
of my own particular experience, that the best 
teachers of district schools are to be found in 
college only. The very next winter, the school 
was blessed with an instructor even superior to 
Mr. Ellis, although he was not a collegian. 
Mr. Henry, however, had well disciplined and 
informed his mind, and was, moreover, an 
experienced teacher. I was not one of his 
pupils ; but I was in the neighborhood, and 
knew of his methods, his faithfulness, and suc- 
cess. His tall, spare, stooping, and dyspeptic 
form is now distinctly before my mind's eye. 
I see him wearied with incessant exertion, 
taking his way homeward at the close of the 



As It Was 137 

afternoon school. His pockets are filled with 
compositions, to be looked over in private. 
There are school-papers in his hat too. A 
large bundle of writing-books is under his arm. 
Through the long evening, and in the little 
leisure of the morning, I see him still hard at 
work for the good of his pupils. Perhaps he is 
surrounded by a circle of the larger scholars, 
whom he has invited to spend the evening with 
him, to receive a more thorough explanation of 
some branch or item of study than there was 
time for in school. But stop — Mr. Henry did 
not keep the district school as it was — why, 
then, am I describing him ? 




ij 8 The District Schoo] 



Chapter XXI 

The Examination at the Closing of the 
School 

' I V HE district school as it was, generally 
-*• closed, in the winter, with what was 
called an ct Examination." This was usually 
attended by the minister of the town, the com- 
mittee who engaged the teacher, and such of 
the parents as chose to come in. Very few, 
however, were sufficiently interested in the im- 
provement of their children, to spend three 
uncomfortable hours in the hot and crowded 
school-room, listening to the same dull round of 
words, year after year. If the school had been 
under the care of a good instructor, all was well 
of course ; if a poor one, it was too late to help 
it. Or, perhaps, they thought they could not 
afford the time on a fair afternoon ; and, if the 
weather was stormy, it was rather more agreea- 
ble to stay at home ; besides, " Nobody else will 
be there, and why should I go ? " Whether 
such were the reflections of parents or not, 
scarcely more than half of them, at most, ever 



As It Was 139 

attended the examination. I do not recollect 
that the summer school was examined at all. 
I know not the reason of this omission, unless 
it was that such had been the custom from time 
immemorial. 

We shall suppose it to be the last day of the 
winter school. The scholars have on their 
better clothes, if their parents are somewhat 
particular, or if the every-day dress " looks quite 
too bad." The young ladies, especially, wear 
the next best gown, and a more cleanly and 
tastefully worked neckerchief. Their hair dis- 
plays more abundant curls and a more elaborate 
adjustment. 

It is noon. The school-room is undergoing 
the operation of being swept as clean as a worn- 
out broom in the hands of one girl, and hem- 
lock twigs in the hands of others, will permit. 
Whew — what a dust ! Alas for Mary's cape, 
so snow-white and smooth in the morning ! 
Hannah's curls, which lay so close to each 
other, and so pat and still on her temples, have 
got loose by the exercise, and have stretched 
themselves into the figure of half-straightened 
cork-screws, nearly unlit for service. The spirit 
of the house-wife dispossesses the bland and smil- 
ing spirit of the school-girl. The masculine can- 
didates for matrimony can now give a shrewd 



140 The District School 

guess who are endued with an innate propensity to 
scold ; who will be Xantippes to their husbands, 
should they ever get their Cupid's nests made 
up again so as to catch them. " Be still, Sam, 
bringing in snow," screams Mary. " Get away 
boys, off out doors, or I'll sweep you into the 
fire," snaps out Hannah, as she brushes the 
urchins' legs with her hemlock. "There, take 
that," screeches Margaret, as she gives a pro- 
voking lubber a knock with a broom handle ; 
" there, take that, and keep your wet, dirty feet 
down off the seats." 

The sweeping and scolding are at length done. 
The girls are now brushing their clothes, by 
flapping handkerchiefs over themselves and each 
other. The dust is subsiding ; one can almost 
breathe again. The master has come, all so 
prim, with his best coat and a clean cravat ; 
and, may be, a collar is stiff and high above it. 
His hair is combed in its genteelest curvatures. 
He has returned earlier than usual, and the boys 
are cut short in their play, — the glorious fun 
of the last noon time. But they must all come 
in. But what shall the visitors sit on ? " Go 
up to Capt. Clark's, and borrow some chairs," 
says the master. Half a dozen boys are off in 
a moment, and next, more than half a dozen 
chairs are sailing, swinging, and clattering 



As It Was 



141 



through the air, and set in a row round the 
spelling-floor. 

The school are at length all seated at their 
books, in palpitating expectation. The master 
makes a speech on the importance of speaking 
up, "loud and distinct," and of refraining from 
whispering, and all other things well known to 
be forbidden. The writing-books and ciphering 
manuscripts are gathered and piled on the desk, 
or the bench near it. "Where is your manu- 
script, Margaret ? " " I carried it home last 
night." " Carried it home ! — what's that for ? " 
" 'Cause I was ashamed on't — I haven't got 
half so far in 'rethmetic as the rest of the girls 
who cipher, I've had to stay at home so much." 

A heavy step is heard in the entry. All is 
hushed within. They do nothing but breathe. 
The door opens — it is nobody but one of the 
largest boys who went home at noon. There 
are sleigh-bells approaching, — hark, do they 
stop ? yes, up in Capt. Clark's shed. Now 
there is another tread, then a distinct and con- 
fident rap. The master opens the door, and 
the minister salutes him, and, advancing, receives 
the simultaneous bows and courtesies of the 
awed ranks in front. He is seated in the most 
conspicuous and honorable place, perhaps in the 
magisterial desk. Then some of the neighbors 



142 The District School 

scatter in, and receive the same homage, though 
it is proffered with a more careless action and 
aspect. 

Now commences the examination. First, the 
younger classes read and spell. Observe that 
little fellow, as he steps from his seat to take 
his place on the floor. It is his day of public 
triumph, for he is at the head ; he has been 
there the most times, and a ninepence swings by 
a flaxen string from his neck. His skin wants 
letting out, it will hardly hold the important 
young gentleman. His mother told him this 
morning, when he left home, " to speak up like 
a minister," and his shrill oratory is almost at 
the very pinnacle of utterance. 

The third class have read. They are now 
spelling. They are famous orthographers ; the 
mightiest words of the spelling columns do not 
intimidate them. Then come the numbers, the 
abbreviations, and the punctuation. Some of the 
little throats are almost choked by the hurried 
ejection of big words and stringy sentences. 

The master has gone through with the sev- 
eral accomplishments of the class. They are 
about to take their seats. " Please to let them 
stand a few moments longer, I should like to 
put out a few words to them, myself," says the 
minister. Now look out. They expect words 



As It Was 143 

as lono; as their finger, from the widest columns 
of the spelling-book, or perhaps such as are 
found only in the dictionary. " Spell wrist" 
says he to the little sweller at the head. " O, 
what an easy word ! " r-i-s-t, wrist. It is not 
right. The next, the next — they all try, or 
rather do not attempt the word ; for if r-i-s-t does 
not spell w rist, they cannot conceive what does. 
" Spell gown, Anna." G-o-u-n-d. " O no, it is 
goivn, not gound. The next try." None of them 
can spell this. He then puts out penknife, which 
is spelt without the k, and then andiron, which 
his honor at the head rattles off in this way, 
" h-a-n-d hand, i-u-r-n hand iurn." 

The poor little things are confused as well 
as discomfited. They hardly know what it 
means. The teacher is disconcerted and mor- 
tified. It dawns on him, that, while he has 
been following the order of the book, and prid- 
ing himself that so young scholars can spell 
such monstrous great words, — words which 
perhaps they will never use, they cannot spell 
the names of the most familiar objects. The 
minister has taught him a lesson. 

The writing-books are now examined. The 
mighty pile is lifted from the desk, and scat- 
tered along through the hands of the visitors. 
Some are commended for the neatness with 



144 The District School 

which they have kept their manuscripts ; some, 
for improvement in writing ; of some, probably 
of the majority, is said nothing at all. 

" Whew ! " softly breathed the minister, as 
he opened a writing-book, some of whose 
pages were a complete ink-souse. He looked 
on the outside, and Simon Patch was the name 
that lay sprawling in the dirt which adhered to 
the newspaper cover. Simon spied his book in 
the reverend gentleman's hands, and noticed his 
queer stare at it. The minister looked up ; 
Simon shrunk and looked down, for he felt that 
his eye was about to seek him. He gazed in- 
tensely in the book before him without seeing a 
word, at the same time earnestly sucking the 
pointed lapel of his Sunday coat. But Simon 
escaped without any audible rebuke. 

Now comes the arithmetical examination ; 
that is, the proficients in this branch are re- 
quired to say the rules. Alas me ! I had no 
reputation at all in this science. I could not 
repeat more than half the rules I had been over, 
nor more than the half of that half in the words 
of the book, as others could. What shame and 
confusion of face were mine on the last day, 
when we came to be questioned in Arithmetic ! 
But when Mr. Ellis had his examination, I 
looked up a little, and felt that I was not so 



As It Was 



"45 






utterly incompetent as my previous teachers, 
together with myself, had supposed. 

Then came the display in Grammar, our 
knowledge of which is especially manifested in 
parsing. A piece is selected which we have 
parsed in the course of the school, and on which 
we are again drilled so as to become as familiar 
with the parts of speech, and the governments 
and agreements of which, as we are with the 
buttons and button-holes of our jackets. We 
appear, of course, amazingly expert. 

We exhibited our talent at Reading, likewise, 
in passages selected for the occasion, and 
conned over, and read over, until the dullest 
might call all the words right, and the most 
careless mind all the " stops and marks." 

But this examination was a stupid piece of 
business to me. The expectation and prepara- 
tion were somewhat exhilarating, as I trust has 
been perceived ; but, as soon as the antici- 
pated scene had commenced, it grew dull, and 
still more dull. 

But let us finish this examination, now we 
are about it. Suppose it finished then. The 
minister remarks to the teacher, " Your school 
appears very well, in general, sir " ; then he 
makes a speech, then a prayer, and his business 
is done. So is that of schoolmaster and school. 

L 



146 



The District School 



" You are dismissed," is uttered for the last 
time this season. It is almost dark, and but 
little time left for a last trip-up, snow-ball, or 
slide down hill. The little boys and girls, with 
their books and dinner baskets, ride home with 
their parents, if they happen to be there. The 
larger ones have some last words and laughs, 
together, and then they leave the Old School- 
house till December comes round again. 




As It Was t 147 



Chapter XXII 

The Old School-house again — its Ap- 
pearance the Last Winter — why so 
long occupied — a New One at last 

1\ yTY first chapter was about the Old School- 
-*-"-*" house: so shall be my last. The declin- 
ing condition in which we first found it, has 
waxed into exceeding infirmity by the changes 
of thirteen years. After the summer school 
succeeding my thirteenth winter of district edu- 
cation, it was sold and carried piece-meal away, 
ceasing forever from the form and name of 
school-house. 

I would have my readers see how the long- 
used and hard-used fabric appeared and how near 
to dissolution it came before the district could 
agree to accommodate their children with a 
new one. 

We will now suppose it is my last winter at 
our school. Here we are inside, let us look 
around a little. 

The long writing-benches arrest our atten- 
tion as forcibly as anything in sight. They 



148 The District School 

were originally of substantial plank, an inch 
and a half thick. And it is well that they were 
thus massive. No board of ordinary measure 
would have stood the hackings and hewings, 
the scrapings and borings, which have been in- 
flicted on those sturdy plank. In the first place, 
the edge next the scholar is notched from end 
to end, presenting an appearance something 
like a broken-toothed mill-saw. Upon the 
upper surface, there has been carved, or pic- 
tured with ink, the likeness of all things in the 
heavens and on earth ever beheld by a country 
school-boy ; and sundry guesses at things he 
never did see. Fifty years has this poor timber 
been subjected to the knives of idlers, and 
fully the fourth of fifty I have hacked on it 
myself; and by this last winter their width has 
become diminished nearly one-half. There are, 
moreover, innumerable writings on the benches 
and ceilings. On the boys' side were scribbled 
the names of the Hannahs, the Marys, and the 
Harriets, toward whom young hearts were be- 
ginning to soften in the first gentle meltings 
of love. One would suppose that a certain 
Harriet A., was the most distinguished belle the 
district has ever produced, from the frequency 
of her name on bench and wall. 

The cracked and patched and puttied windows 



As It Was 149 

are now still more diversified by here and there 
a square of board instead of glass. 

The master's desk is in pretty good order. 
The first one was knocked over in a noon-time 
scuffle, and so completely shattered as to render 
a new one necessary. This has stood about 
ten years. 

As to the floor, had it been some winters we 
could not have seen it without considerable 
scraping away of dust and various kinds of litter ; 
for a broom was not always provided, and boys 
would not wallow in the snow after hemlock, 
and sweeping could not so well be done with a 
stick. This winter, however, Mr. Ellis takes 
care that the floor shall be visible the greater 
part of the time. It is rough with sundry patches 
of board nailed over chinks and knot-holes made 
by the wear and tear of years. 

Now we will look at the fire-place. One 
end of the hearth has sunk an inch and a half 
below the floor. There are crevices between 
some of the tiles, into which coals of fire some- 
times drop and make the boys spring for snow. 
The andirons have each lost a fore-foot, and the 
office of the important member is supplied by 
bricks which had been dislodged from the chim- 
ney-top. The fire-shovel has acquired by acci- 
dent or age a venerable stoop. The tongs can 



150 The District School 

no longer be called a pair, for the lack of one of 
the fellow-limbs. The bar of iron running from 
jamb to jamb in front, — how it is bent and 
sinking in the middle, by the pressure of 
the sagging fabric above ! Indeed the whole 
chimney is quite ruinous. The bricks are loose 
here and there in the vicinity of the fire-place ; 
and the chimney-top has lost so much of its 
cement that every high wind dashes off a brick, 
rolling and sliding on the roof, and then tum- 
bling to the ground, to the danger of cracking 
whatever heedless skull may happen in the 
way. 

The window-shutters, after having shattered 
the glass by the slams of many years, have 
broken their own backs at length. Some have 
fallen to the ground, and are going the way of 
all things perishable. Others hang by a single 
hinge, which is likely to give way at the next 
high gale, and consign the dangling shutter to 
the company of its fellows below. 

The clapboards are here and there loose, and 
dropping one by one from their fastenings. One 
of these thin and narrow appendages, sticking by 
a nail at one end, and loose and slivered at the 
other, sends forth the most ear-rending music to 
the skillful touches of the North-west. Indeed, 
so many are the avenues by which the wind 



As It Was 151 

passes in and out, and so various are the notes, 
according as the rushing air vibrates a splinter, 
makes the window clatter, whistles through a 
knot-hole, and rumbles like a big bass down the 
chimney, that the edifice may be imagined up- 
roarious winter's Panharmonicon, played upon 
in turn by all the winds. 

Such is the condition of the Old School-house, 
supposing it to be just before we leave it forever, 
at the close of my thirteenth and last winter at 
our district school. It has been resorted to 
summer after summer, and winter after winter, 
although the observation of parents and the sen- 
sations of children have long given evidence 
that it ought to be abandoned. 

At every meeting on school affairs that has 
been held for several years, the question of a 
new school-house has been discussed. All agree 
on the urgent need of one, and all are willing to 
contribute their portion of the wherewith ; but 
when they attempt to decide on its location, 
then their harmonious action is at an end. All 
know that this high bleak hill, the coldest spot 
within a mile, is not the place; it would be 
stupid folly to put it here. At the foot of the 
hill, on either side, is as snug and pleasant a 
spot as need be. But the East-enders will not 
permit its location on the opposite side, and the 



152 The District School 

West-enders are as obstinate on their part. Each 
division declares that it will secede and form a 
separate district should it be carried further off, 
although in this case they must put up with 
much cheaper teachers, or much less schooling, 
or submit to twice the taxes. 

Thus they have tossed the ball of discussion, 
and sometimes hurled that of contention, back 
and forth, year after year, to just about as much 
profit as their children have flung snow-balls in 
play, or chips and cakes of ice when provoked. 
At length, Time, the final decider of all things 
material, wearied with their jars, is likely to end 
them by tumbling the old ruin about their 
ears. 

Months have passed ; it is near winter again. 
There is great rejoicing among the children, 
satisfaction among the parents, harmony between 
the two Ends. A new school-house has been 
erected at last — indeed it has. A door of 
reconciliation and mutual adjustment was opened 
in the following manner. 

That powerful-to-do, but tardy personage, the 
Public, began to be weary of ascending and 
descending Capt. Clark's hill. He began to cal- 
culate the value of time and horse-flesh. One 
day it occurred to him that it would be as 



As It Was 153 

" cheap, and indeed much cheaper," to go round 
this hill at the bottom, than to go round it over 
the top ; for it is just as far from side to side of 
a ball in one direction as in another, and this was 
a case somewhat similar. He perceived that 
there would be no more lost in the long run by 
the expense of carrying the road an eighth of a 
mile to the south, and all on level ground, than 
there would be by still wasting the breath of 
horse and the patience of man in panting up and 
tottering down this monstrous hill. It seemed 
as if he had been blind for years, not to have 
conceived of the improvement before. No time 
was to be lost now. He lifted up his many- 
tongued voice, and put forth his many-handed 
strength ; and, in the process of a few months, 
a road was constructed, curving round the south 
side of the aforesaid hill, which, after all, proved 
to be but a few rods longer from point to point 
than the other. 

The district were no longer at variance about 
the long-needed edifice. The aforementioned 
improvement had scarcely been decided on, be- 
fore every one perceived how the matter might 
be settled. A school-meeting was soon called, 
and it was unanimously agreed to erect a new 
school-house on the new road, almost exactly 
opposite the old spot, and as equidistant from 



^54 



The District School 



the two Ends, it was believed, as the equator is 
from the poles. 

Here Mr. Henry taught the District School 
somewhat as it should be j and it has never since 
been kept as it was. 




A SUPPLICATION TO THE 
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED 

STATES 



A Supplication 157 



A Supplication 

j\ BOUT sixty thousand Slaves, owned by the 
•* ** People of the United States, make the fol- 
lowing supplication to their masters, not for 
emancipation, but for the a?nelioration of the con- 
dition of certain individuals of their race. 

Most sovereign, rightful, and excellent 
Masters, — We are the English Language, — 
your lawful and perpetual bond-servants, whose 
names and origin, characters and duties, are so 
faithfully exhibited, in Noah Webster's great 
Dictionary. By far the largest part of us have 
received nothing but the kindest usage from our 
owners, from time immemorial. Some thou- 
sands of us, indeed, were it possible, might die 
of having nothing to do but sleep, shut up in 
the dormitory of the Dictionary, or in the com- 
position of some most learned, or most silly 
book, which the mass of the people never open. 
But of this we do not complain. Nor do we 
account it much of an evil, that certain Yankees 
make us weary, with the monstrously long drawl 
with which they articulate us into use. Nor do 



158 A Supplication 

we cry out against the painful clipping, cutting- 
up, and shattering-to-pieces, given us by the 
African race ; — for we serve them as faithfully 
as we do their white fellow-mortals. 

But now we humbly pray that you will hear 
what we do complain of. We complain, that 
certain of our brethren are exceedingly abused, 
and made wretched, by some thousands, and 
perhaps millions, of our owners. Their piteous 
groans have shocked our ears, — their unretrieved 
sufferings have pained our sympathizing hearts, 
for many years. We can endure no longer; — 
we must speak. Your ancient servants come, 
then, supplicating you to take measures for the 
relief of the sufferings of the individuals of our 
number, whose names and particular subjects of 
complaint shall now be enumerated, proceeding 
in alphabetical order. 

Arithmetic, — that accurate calculator, indis- 
pensable to this mighty and money-making na- 
tion, grievously complains that he is obliged to 
work for thousands without the use of A-head, 
and deprived of one of his two is. Here is a 
picture of his mutilated form, — Reth?netic ! 

Attacked, — an important character, that fig- 
ures so gloriously in military dispatches, and is 
so necessary in medical reports, — is forced, by 
many, to the use of t, more than his constitution 



A Supplication 159 

will admit. He cannot perform his necessary 
business, you know, without the use of /, twice 
during every job, — but to have it forced into 
him three times, causes a change in his constitu- 
tion and appearance, which he cannot comforta- 
bly bear. See how Attacked is altered by more 
/ than he wants, — Attack Ted. 

There is another poor fellow, who has a simi- 
lar affliction, — Across. See what a spectacle a 
little t makes of him, — Acrosst. 

That most excellent friend and profitable 
servant of the Workingmen's party, Earn, 
complains that those whom he serves the best, 
deprive him of what little e's his laborious con- 
dition demands. See what Earn is brought to 
by such hard treatment, — Aim. 

That necessary attendant on every messenger, 
— Errand, is in the same state of suffering, from 
the same cause. Errand is made Arrant. 

After — is willing to linger behind everybody 
else in his business ; but it is a miserable fate 
to be deprived of so large a portion of his small 
energy in this way, — Arter. 

" Go arter the cows, Tom," says Ma'am Milk- 
moolly. "I move that we adjourn to arternoon" 
says Squire Goodman, in the Legislature. 

Hear, also, how that entirely different charac- 
ter, and bold goer-ahead, growls as he passes on, 



160 A Supplication 

— Before. " I will go forward and do my duty 
as long as any part of me is left sound \ but 
my well-being is dreadfully affected by a great 
many people whom I serve, — as you cannot 
but perceive," — Afore. 

Bellows, — that excellent household servant, 

— says he has often had his nose stopped up by 
ashes, and has wheezed with the asthma for 
months, but all these afflictions are nothing to 
usage like this, — Belluses. 

Bachelor — is exceedingly sensitive about what 
is said of him in the presence of the ladies. He 
is shockingly mortified at being called Batchelder. 
To be sure, he is a batch-^/^r than he ought to 
be, regarding the comfort of maidens and the 
good of his country ; but he is an odd fellow, 
and wants his own way. He is almost tempted 
to destroy himself by taking that deadly poison 
to his nature, — a ivife, — in order to be re- 
lieved from his mortification. 

Boil — is at the hot duty of keeping the pot 
going, and sometimes it is hard work ; however, 
he complains not of this ; but poor Boil has had 
the jaundice, and all other liver complaints, for 
years, and is blubbering like a baby — all in con- 
sequence of this, viz., about nine-tenths of the 
cooks in America, and two-thirds of the eaters, 
call him Bile. 



A Supplication I & 1 

Cellar is the lowest character in the house, 

and takes more wine and cider than any other, 
and is the biggest sauce-box in the world. Yet, 
with all the propriety of the parlor, and a 
sobriety, as if not a drop of intoxicating liquor 
was in him, he now implores you to remember 
that he is a Cellar, and not a Sullen 

Chimney. — Here is a character who ten thou- 
sand times would have taken fire at an affront, 
were it not for the danger of burning up the 
houses and goods of his abusers, — faithful ser- 
vant and tender-hearted creature that he is ! 
He is content to do the hottest, hardest, and 
dirtiest work in the world. You may put as 
much green wood upon his back as you please, 
and make him breathe nothing but smoke, and 
swallow nothing but soot, and stand over steam, 
till pots and kettles boil no more ; all these are 
ease, pleasantness, and peace, to abuse like this, 
— Chimbly. 

Dictionary — rages with all the rough epithets 
in gentlemanly or vulgar- use ; and then he melts 
into the most tender and heart-moving words of 
entreaty, and, in fact, tries all the various 
powers of the English language. Still further, 
mighty lexicographic champions, such as Dr. 
Webster, Sheridan, Walker, Perry, Jones, Ful- 
ton and Knight, and Jameson, besides numerous 

M 



1 62 A Supplication 

other inferior defenders, — even hosts of spell- 
ing-book makers, have all exerted their utmost 
in vain, to save him from the ignominy of being 
— Dicksonary. 

End — is uttering the most dolorous groans. 
There are certain individuals who are always 
killing him without putting him to an end. See 
what a torture he is put to — eend, eend. 

Further, — that friend of the progress and 
improvements of this ahead-going age, stops by 
the way to ask relief. He is ready to further 
all the innumerable plans for the benefit of man, 
except when he is brought back in this way — 
Furder. 

General, — that renowned and glorifying char- 
acter, whose fame has resounded through the 
world, is dishonored and made gloryless by many 
a brave man as well as chicken-heart. He has 
now intrenched himself in this position, viz., 
that he will no longer magnify many little 
militia-folks into mightiness, unless they forbear 
to call him Gineral. It is not only a degrada- 
tion, but it is an offence to his associations. 
Gin — G/»-er-al ; /F/W-er-al, and much more, 
Water-?\, would be more glory-giving in these 
un-treating, or rather, re-treating times of 
temperance. 

Gave, — that generous benefactor, that mag- 



A Supplication 163 

nanimous philanthropist, is almost provoked. 
He declares that he has a good mind, for once, 
to demand back his donations from the temper- 
trying miscallers. I gave a thousand dollars, 
this very day, towards the completion of Bunker- 
Hill Monument. But don't say of me, he gin. 
I never gin a cent in my life. . 

Get, — that enterprising and active character, 
who is a stanch friend of all the temperate and 
industrious, stops to complain, that some of 
those he serves the best call him — Git. And 
he is very reluctant to get along about his busi- 
ness, till some measures are taken to prevent 
the abuse. Get is now waiting, ye workers of 
all professions ; what say ? Will you still, with 
a merciless /, make him Git ? 

Gum — is always on the jaw , that he is so 
often called Goomb, in spite of his teeth. 

Gown, — that very ladylike personage, is sigh- 
ing away at the deplorable ^-formity that de- 
spoils her beauty in the extreme, as is developed 
in the following de-tail, Gown-d. Oh ! ye lords 
of language ! if ye have any gallantry, come to 
the deliverance of the amiable gown, that she 
may shake off' this D-pendant. 

Handkerchief, — your personal attendant, is 
also distressed in the extreme. She is kept by 



164 A Supplication 

many from her chief end in the following cruel 
manner — Handfor-CHER. 

'January, — that old Roman, is storming away 
in the most bitter wrath ; shaking about his 
snowy locks, and tearing away at his icy beard, 
like a madman. " Blast 'em," roars his Majesty 
of midwinter, " don't they know any better 
than to call me Jinuary ? They say, c It is a 
terrible cold J/nuary,' — then, l It is the J/nuary 
thaw.' Oh ! ye powers of the air ! help me to 
freeze and to melt them by turns, every day, for 
a month, until they shall feel the difference be- 
tween the vowel a, and the vowel i. My name 
is January" 

Kettle, — that faithful kitchen-servant, is boil- 
ing with rage. He is willing to be hung in 
trammels, and be obliged to get his living by 
hook and by crook, and be hauled over the coals 
every day, and take even pot-luck for his fare, 

— and, indeed, to be called black by the pot ; 

— all this he does not care a snap for; but to 
be called Kittle — Kittle ! " Were it not for 
the stiffness of my limbs, I would soon take 
leg-bail," says the fiery hot Kettle. 

Little — allows that he is a very inferior 
character, but avers that he is not least in 
the great nation of words. He cannot be more, 
and he will not be less. Prompted by a con- 



A Supplication 165 

siderate self-respect, he informs us that he is 
degraded to an unwarrantable diminutiveness by 
being called — Leetle. " A leetle too much," says 
one. " A leetle too far," says another. " A 
mighty leetle thing," cried a third. Please to 
call respectable adjectives by their right names, 
is the polite request of your humble servant, 
Little. 

Lie, — that verb of so quiet a disposition by 
nature, is roused to complain that his repose is 
exceedingly disturbed in the following manner. 
Almost the whole American nation, learned as 
well as unlearned, have the inveterate habit of 
saying — Lay, when they mean, and might say 
— Lie. " Lay down, and lay abed, and let it 
lay" is truly a national sin against the laws of 
grammar. 

Mrs., — that respectable abbreviation, is ex- 
ceedingly grieved at the indignity she suffers. 
The good ladies, whom she represents, are let 
down from the matronly dignity, to which she 
would hold them, even to the un-married deg- 
radation of Miss; — and this in the United 
States, where matrimony is so universally 
honored and sought after. She desires it to be 
universally published, that Miss belongs only to 
ladies who have never been blessed with hus- 
bands. 



1 66 A Supplication 

Oil, — you all know, has a disposition, 
smooth to a proverb; — but he is, to say the 
least, in great danger of losing his fine, easy 
temper, by being treated in the altogether im- 
proper manner that you here behold — lie ! 

Potatoes, — (those most indispensable servants 
to all dinner-eating Americans, and the benevo- 
lent furnishers of " daily bread" and, indeed, 
the whole living to Pat-land's poor,) — Potatoes, 
are weeping with all their eyes, at the agony to 
which they are put by thousands. They are 
most unfeelingly mangled, top and toe, in this 
manner, — Taters. Notwithstanding their ex- 
tremities, in the most ?nealy-mo\it\\z& manner 
they exclaim, — " Po ! Po ! gentlemen and ladies ! 
pray spare us a head, and you may bruise our 
toes in welcome. Still, you must confess that 
Potaters is not so sound and whole-some as 
Potatoes." 

Point — allows that in some respects he is of 
very minute importance ; but asserts that in 
others he is of the greatest consequence, as in 
an argument, for instance. Point is determined 
to prick forward in the cause, till he shall be no 
longer blunted and turned away from his aim, 
and robbed of his very nature, in the measure 
you here perceive — Pint. 

Philadelphia — takes off his broad-brim, and, 



A Supplication 167 

in the softest tones of brotherly love, implores 
the people of the United States to cease calling 
him by that harsh, horrid, and un-brotherly 
name, — Fellydelphy. It deprives him of his 
significance, and ancient and honorable lineage, 
as every Greek scholar well knows. 

Poetry. — What a halo of glory around this 
daughter of Genius, and descendant of Heaven ! 
Behold how she is rent asunder by many a piti- 
ful proser, and made to come short of due honor. 
Potry — Apollo and the Muses know nothing 
about Potry ! 

6)uench, — that renowned extinguisher, whom 
all the world can't hold a candle to, is himself 
very much put ra/,now and then, from this cause, 
— some people permit that crooked and hissing 
serpent £, to get before him, and coil round 
him, while he is in the hurry of duty, as you 
here see — Squench ; and sometimes they give 
him a horrid black 1, thus — Squinch. 

Rather — is universally known to be very 
nice in his preferences, and to be almost con- 
tinually occupied in expressing them. Be it as 
universally known, then, that he is disgusted 
beyond all bearing at being called — Ruther. 

Sauce — has a good many elements in him, 
and, above all, a proper share of self-respect. 
He thinks he has too much spice and spirit to 



1 68 A Supplication 

be considered such a flat as this indicates — 
Sass. 

Scarce — is not a very frequent complainant 
of anything, — but he now complains of certain 
Nippies, both male and female, and hosts of 
honest imitators, call him Scurce, thinking it the 
very tip of gentility. 

Such — does not complain of mistaken polite- 
ness, but of low and vulgar treatment like this 
— Sich. 

Since — embraces all antiquity, goes back be- 
yond Adam, yea, as far back into the unbegin- 
ningness as you could think in a million of 
years, and unimaginably further. And, oh ! 
his hoary head is bowed down with sorrow 
at being called by two-thirds of the American 
people, Seme. 

Spectacles, — those twin literati, who are ever 
poring over the pages of learning, raise eyes of 
supplication. They say that they cannot look 
with due respect upon certain elderly people, 
who pronounce them more unlettered than they 
really are, as you may perceive without looking 
with their interested eyes — Spetacles. Venerable 
friends, pray c us, c us. 

Sit — has been provoked to stand up in his 
own behalf, although he is of sedentary habits, 
and is sometimes inclined to be idle. He de- 



A Supplication 169 

clares he has too much pride and spirit to let 
that more active personage — Set — do all his 
work for him. " Set still," says the pedagogue 
to his pupils — and parents to their children. 
" Set down, sir," — say a thousand gentlemen, 
and some famously learned ones, to their vis- 
itors. " The coat sets well," affirms the tailor. 
Now all this does not sit well on your com- 
plainant, and he sets up his Ebenezer, that he 
should like a little more to do, — especially in 
the employ of college-learned men, and also of 
the teachers of American youth. 

Sat — makes grievous complaint that he is 
called Sot. He begs all the world to know that 
he hath not redness of eyes, nor rumminess nor 
brandiness of breath, nor flamingness of nose, 
that he should be degraded by the drunkard's 
lowest and last name — Sot. 

Shut. — This is a person of some importance. 
He is, indeed, the most decisive and unyielding 
exclusive in the world. He keeps the outs, out, 
and the ins, in, both in fashionable and political 
life. Now this stiff old aristocrat is made to 
appear exceedingly flat, silly, and undignified, by 
being called, by sundry persons, — Shet. " Shet 
the door," says old Grandsire Grumble, of a 
cold, windy day. " Shet your books," says the 
schoolmaster, when he is about to hear the 



170 A Supplication 

urchins spell. u Shet up, you saucy blockhead," 
cries he, to young Insolence. This is too bad ! 
It is abominable ! a schoolmaster, the appointed 
keeper of orthographical and orthoepical honor, 
— letting fall the well-bred and lofty-minded — 
Shut — from his guardian lips, in the shape 
of Shet. Oh ! the plebeian ! Faithless and un- 
fit pedagogue ! ! He ought to be banished to 
Shet-land, where by day he should battle with 
Boreas ; and where by night his bed should be 
the summit of a snow-drift, — his sheets nothing 
but Arctic mists, — and his pillow the fragment 
of an iceberg ! ! Away with the traitor to Shet- 
land ! O, most merciful American masters and 
mistresses ! Shut has no relief or safety from 
the miserableness of Shet, but in U. 

Told — feels the dignity of his vocation, and 
asks not to be kept out of use by such bad 
grammar as this — Telled. 

Yes, — that good-natured personage, affirms 
that were he not of so complying a disposition, 
he would henceforth be no to everybody who 
should call him — Yis. 

Finally, — hearken ! There is a voice from the 
past. It is the complaint of departing Yesterday. 
He cries aloud — Give ear, O, To-day, and 
hear, hear, O, To-morrow ! Never, never more, 
call me Yisterday I 



A Supplication 171 

We have thus presented you, Sovereign Own- 
ers, with the complaints and groans of a con- 
siderable number of our race. There are, 
doubtless, many others, who are also in a state 
of suffering, but who have uncommon fortitude, 
or too much modesty, to come forward pub- 
licly, and make known their trials to our whole 
assembled community. Should the abuse of any 
such happen to be known to you at any time, we 
pray that the same consideration may be given 
to them as to the rest. 

Now, Sovereign Masters and Mistresses, and 
Rightful Owners, shall these visions of hope be 
realized ? Shall the condition of our suffering 
brethren be ameliorated ? Shall the era of good 
grammar, correct spelling, and proper pronunci- 
ation, be hastened forward by some benevolent 
exertions ? Shall the present abuses be trans- 
mitted to the future or not ? Shall the Golden 
Age of Speech speedily come, and last evermore ? 

That such improvement in their condition 
may be vouchsafed, is the humble prayer of 
your supplicants ; — all whose names, being too 
numerous to be here subscribed, may be found 
recorded in Webster's great Dictionary. 



PAGES FROM OLD SPELLERS 




FRONTISPIECE OF "THE ONLY SURE GUIDE, 
(See page u.) 



j ■""■ - 


^SYLLABLES OF 


TWO 


LETTERS.' 


E=» 






Lesson 1 






I" ba- 


he 


bf 


bar 


bu 


by 


te 


*e 


l\ 


Jo 


*u 


*y 


da 


dc 


di 


do 


du 


dy 


[fa 


fc 


ff 


fo 


fu 




ga 


4e 


» 


g^ 


gu 


gy 


'ha 
f 


he 


hi 


ho 


hu 


hj 




Lesson 2. 






i-P 


je 


j f 


j' v 


ju 


jy 


|ka 


kc 


ki 


ko 


ku 


ky 


jla 


le 


li 


15 


lu 


iy, 


ma 


me 


mi 


mo 


mu 


my 


na 


ne 


ni 


no 


nu 


"y 


pa 


pc 


I", 


po 


pa 


py 


i 




Lessen 3. 






jra 


re 


ri 


ro 


ru 


tf 


jsa 


se 


si 


so 


su 


sy 


ta 


te. 


tl 


to 


tu 


ty 


va 


ve 


vi 


vo 


vu 


V y 


wa 


we 


wi 


wo 


wu 


wy 


za 


ze 


zi 


zo 


zu 


zy 






Lesson 4. 






ab 


eb 


lb 


6b 


ub 


he- 


a* 


e* 


tt 


6* 


iiS 


ll 


lad 


ed 


Id 


6d 


iid 


U P 


af 


ef 


if 


of 


iif 


we 


a g 


eg 


ig 


og 


"g 


go 


al 


el 


il 


61 


ul 


in 






Lesson 5 






£m 


em 


ira 


6m 


urn 


so 


an 


en 


in 


on 


un 


hd 


ap 


ep 


«P 


OR 


up 


il 





WORDS 


OF ONE 


SYLLABLE. 


broad 


f&flt 


v h&Zght 


ward * 


wart 


fraUd 


vault 


t&ght 


sward 


thwart 


each 


eve 


bleach 


cheek 


fee 


reach 


heave 


preach 


shnek 


tree 


ease 


bead 


bream 


cheese 


ftef 


pleale 


plead 


stream 


leel 


chiei 


east 


beak 


brearHe 


cleave 


fierce 


least 


peak 


sheaTHe 


thieve 


pierce 


eel 


beeves 


bnef 


crease 


fleece 


feel 


greaves 


sheaf 


grease 


geese 


grease* 


keep 


leer 


plea 


rear 


sneeze 


sleep 


mere 


pea 


spear 


heat 


faiee 


Ke£e 


peat 


reel 


neat 


tea 


sie|e 


seat 


teal 


heath 


lean 


neap 


seek, 


scAeme 


sheath 
keel 


yean 
leech 


peep 

queer 


sleek 
she 


theme 
speak ^ 
Squeak 


kneel 


peach 


smear. 


threS 


screen 


teeth 


sneer 


teaie 


chirp 


spleen 


wreath 


sphere 


THeie 


stlrp 


Scream 


shield 


squeal 


treat 


earth 


stream 


wield 


wheel 


wheat 


dearth 


Screech 


; sleet 


Squeeze 


tweak 


ed*e. 


speech 


street 


wheeze 


streak 


dredge 


seeTH " 


sneak 


steed 


wench 


err ~ 


wieaTH 


speak 


weed 


wrench 


fir 


Irk 


cleanlc 


|erm 


girt 


hern 


jerk 


lent, 


firm 


wert 


yearn 


breast 


deaf 


fled|e 


head 


help 


vest 


feoff 


pledge 


thread 


whelp 


breath 


get 


sherd 


health 


perk 




I 


* A verb. 





EASY READLNQ„ 

DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 

Love your . brothers and sisters. Do not tease nor vex 

them, nor calf them names; and never let your little hands 

be raised to strike them. If they have any thing which 

j you would like to have, do not be angry with them, nor 

! try to get it from them. If you have any thing they like, 

share it with them. 

Xour parents grieve when they see you quarrel ; .they 
I'ovo you all, and wish you -to love one another, and to live 
in peace and harmony. 

l)o not meddle with what does not belong to you ; nor 
ever take other people's things without leave. 

Never tell an untruth. When you arc relating any thing 

you have seen, or heard, endeavour to tell it exactly as it 

wis. Do not alter or invent any part, or make it, as you 

aay think, a prettier story. If you have forgotten any 

[parf.'say thatyou have forgotten it. 

Persons who love the n-uth, never tell a lie even in jest. 

— ©Q© — 



a^en-cy 

ii'lf-as 

a Wen -ate 

a'6-rist 

a'pri-^ot 

vWjuc-ous 

fi're-a 

he^noiis-jiess' 
knik'vvr-f. 

M-tf 

| la'zf-ness 
! male'con-tent 
ma'nf-ac 
I naPa-del. 
| pa'gan-ism 



WORDS OF THREE SYLLABLES. 

a^irel dra'per-f 

Mgk'tl-eth 
fa'vour-ite 
fe^Ved-l! 
fia'gran-cl 
giu'c-ty 5 



a^/ie-ism 

ba'ytfn-^et 

bra'ver-y 5 

ca've-at 

chan^'e'a-ble 

dm'rf-mnid 

dan'|er-ous 

pa'pa-o| 

pa'trf-arc/t 

pa'trf-ot 

pa'ti'Sn-ess 

p^a'e-ton 

pla'ea-ble 

pla'^'a-rlsm 

ra'df-ance 



grate'ful-ly 1 

gu^ia-cum 

ra'df-us 
ia'pf-ir 
ra'ta-bie 
ra'Pf-o 

siile'a-bh? 
sa'pi-ence 
sa't h !-ntc 
sa'vSr-y 



WORDS OF FIVE AND SIX SYLLABLES. 


| &ys-trd-l! : za'u3u 


e-man-cl-pa'ftoo 


de-nun-c !i i-a'ti3n 


en-^a-s K i-as / ti£ 


de-Bid-e-ra'tuna 


cp-f-Su-re'an 


di-af/i-o-ret'iJ 


c'x-al-^ci-ra'flron 


eS-Sle-i'l-as'tifc 


ex-post^u-la'tSon 


ed-f-ff-*a'ii5n 


£e-6m-e-tri-ci'an 


e-ja&-u-la'ti5n 


4es-tifc-u-la'ti2n 


1 e-lu-cf-da't^n 


hi-e-ro-glyl&'ifc 


f-maJ-in-aliSfl 


me-temp-sj-fc/io'sis 


ln-au-gu-ra'tion 


lie-gQ-t'l-a'tiun 


fa-dis-po-ii-ti'Sn 


pa-pil-Jo-na'ceous 


m-fat-'u-a'tiSn 


fAar-ma-fco-poe'ia 


ln-ter-ro-ga'iiun 


pre-cip-i-ta'tion 


[ ln-ves-tf-ga'tiofl 


pro-nun-cl-a'tiun 


jus-tf-ff-Sa'tiSn 


prds-o-po-poe'Ia 


maJ/i-c-ma-ti-ci'an 


pU-I-fl-MMn 


rec- 2 om-men-da /S tiun 


siib-til-f-za'tiSn 


re-len-er-a'tion 


su-per-In-tend'en'e 


re-it- 2 er-a't\on 


sup-pos-t-tl-ti'oiis 


re-stis-ci- ta't iron 


ter-^f-ver-sa'tion. 


re-vcr-ber-a'tiSa 


trans-fjg-u-ra/tion 


sanJ-tf-ff-Sa'tiSn 


ver-sf-fi-i a'tion 


so-lic-i-ta'iiun 


viv-?-ff-Sa'ii8n 


ster-e-6-grap&'i£ 


vo-cif er-a'tion 


Mn-iil'f-a-tBr-l 


ln-ter-r6g"a-t8r-£ 


e^jafcu-la-tur-f 


fr-re-£3v'jjr-a-ble 


pro-pi-H-a-tSr f 


ir-re-me'df-a-bte 


re-ver'ber-a-tor-l 


su-per-niVmer-ar-^ 


MrttnWi-log'f-gal-tf 


the-o-rct't-U\-\} 


tfr-lSum-Iog'u-to-rl 


ad-mf-ra-biM-tl 


ele-e-mol'y-nar-^ 


an-te-me-rt'df-an 


in-de-faj;"i-ga-bje 


an-t!-m6-nar-£/*f-£al 



EASY~LE3S0NS. 




jiuniiiiiiiiiiiiiTiiiijiiTimnHfliiiiiiuijaminsiiitiiiiiiHfluiiiiititiumraiiiini 



The Lord is God, and the only God. It is he that hath 
made us, and does us good. 

The life of the body and the life of the soul- are from 
God. He made the eye, and can see us. He made the 
ear, and can hear us. The eye of God is upon the evil, 
and the good. 

If you love God he 1 will save yoii. Make the word of 
God the rule of all you do ; mind well what Hk says in his 
word, for that will show you the way to life. This Ufe is 
for a short time ; but the life to come has no end. 

Look at them that do well* and do so too. Keep froui 
them that do evil and tell lies. Fear the Lord all the day 
long. 

Let us love the Lord our God with all our soul ; for lie 
is kind to us. If the Lord keep us, we need not fear any 
evil. 

We must hate no one ; but love and do good to all ; and 
love them that do not love us. Be just and kind to all 
men. It is the bad boy, that will hurt, when he can, his 
play-mate ; you must not do it, if you can help it ; no, you 
must not so much as vex him. 

As soon as the sun is up, you must be up, add not lie in 
bed. 

The sun was made for man. and it will be of no use to 
him, if he is not up. 
J You are to lie down, and take rest in the night ; but rise 
£ and work in the day. 

MTT™iiS-airi-TriM"Tr~ : r-r-~~-'"-iT I ~ *'~~ "■^— — a«n— — i ■ iiii i iii*T"i 



EASY LESS0N3. 




QUESTIONS FOR LITTLE JBOYS. 

How many fingers have you got, little boy ? 

Here are four fingers on this hand. And what is this ? 
Thumb. Four fingers and thumb, that makes five. And 
how many ou the other hand ? 

There are five too. 

What is this ? 

This is the right hand. 

And thrs? This is the left hand. 

And how many toes have you got ? Let us count. 

Five upon this foot, and five upon that foot. 

Five and live make ten : ten fingers and ten toes. 

How many legs have you 1 ? 

Here is one, and here is another. Charles has two legs* 

How many legs has a horse ? 

A horse has four legs. 

And how many has a d6g 1 

Four ; and a cow has four ; and a sheep has four ; and 
puss has four legs. 

And how many legs have the chickens ? 

Go and look. 

The chickens have only two legs. 

And the linnets, and the robins, and all the birds have 
only two legs. J 

But I will tell you what birds have got ; they have got 
wings to iyj with, and they fly very, high in the air. 



EASY LESSONS. 

THE GOOD CHILD. 




•uiiiiiiiniii.aiiKiiimsayst 



MWHIiniUil 



On, that it were my chief delight 

To do the things I ought ! 
Then let mo try with all my might 

To mind what 1 am taugbt. 

Wherever I am told to go, 

I '1! cheerfully obey ; 
Nor will I mind it much, although 

I leave a pretty play. 

Wiiqu I am hid. I'll freely bring 

Whoever I have got ; 
Nor will I touch a pretty thing 

If mother tells me not. 

When she permits me, I may tell 

About my pretty toys ; , 
But if she's busy, or unwell, 

.1 must not make a noise. 

And when I learn my hymns to say, 

.And work and read and spell, 
I will not think about my play, 

But try and do it well. 

For GOD looks down from heaven on high, 

Our actions to behold, 
And he is pleased, when children try 

To do as they are told. 




THE GOOD SCHOLAR 



Joseph West had heeh told, 

That if, when he grew old, 
He had not learned rightly to speJJ, 

Though his writing were good, 

•Twould not he understood ; 
And Joe said," I will learn my task well. 

And he made it a rule 

To he silent at school ; 
And what do you think came to pass f 

Why, he learned' it so fast, 

That, from being the4ast, 
He soon was the first in the class. 

SELECT SENTENCES. 
Never ask other persons to do any thing for 70a, whkl 

q " ifwe do not take pains, we must not elpect toexcel in 

"VSrve and industrions people can always find time to 
do what is proper for them to do 



The Analytical Spelling Boole. 



Sweet 



Sec. 15. 
Sweet-er, Swcet-est. 



A* pear is sweet, a plumb is sweeter, honey 
is sweetest. 

Ann is a sweet child -— 
She does not cry or snarl. 
She minds her pa and ma, 
and loves the little babe. So 
she is a sweet child. 

The robin sings sweet- 
ly. You have seen the 
rob-in sit-ting on a limb, 
and heard her sweet 



The sap of the ma-ple has 
SWeet»nesS. It can be boil- 
ed till only the sweetness is left, 
and then it is sugar. 





Sweet, sweeter, sweet-est, sweet- 
ly, swect-ness. 

Bold, bolder, boSd-est, bold-ly, 
boldness. 

cold wild high calm harsh 

blind linrbt bright dark sharp 

mild tight kind hard smart 



The Analytical Spelling Book. 



Stealing, 



Sec. 18. 
Now you know so many words, you can 
read a story about the boy who stole a pin. 
But first can you tell me what is a pin ? Of 
what is it made? What kind of wire? — 
What is done to the ends? For what is it 
j used ? Now hear the story about 

The boy who stole a pin. 
A little while ago a good man went to the 
cold, dark jail, to talk with the wicked per- 
sons who were shut up there for crimes. — 
He found one man, who was soon to be 
hung. He was taken up .for rob-bing, tried 
by the court, and con-dem-ned to be hung. 
Ihe good man asked him how he came to 
such an end. Said the rob-ber, " The first 
tiling that led me to it was, when I was a 
little boy and went to school, / stole a pin. 
I saw it on the coat-cuff of the boy who 
sat next to me, and I want-ed it. But I was 
afraid to take it because it was none of 
mine.: I looked at it again, and wished it 
were mine. And when no one saw me, I 
put out my hand, and drew it from the cuff, 
and hid it behind me. But O! how I felt! 
It seemed to me all the boys in school look- 
ed right at me, and said, * You stole a pin ! ' 
What would I not have given, if it were 
crime — some-thing wrong. What is a cuff? 



The Analytical Spelling Book. 



stole a pin to be hung. 

j back in the cuff. But I was ashamed to 
I put it back, and let the boy know that 1 had 
stol-en it; so I kept it. I was not found 
I out, and soon for-got how bad I felt. I then 
i saw a -knife, and wanted that. I felt more 
I bold to take it, as I was not found out with I 
{the pin;' so 1 look the knife. I did not fee! ! 
quite so bad. JVcxt,'! stole a roll of cloth,, 
and so went on from bad to worse, until 1 j 
got me a pis-tol to get things by force. I; 
went to a thick clump of bushes and hid tillj 
it Was dark. Then as a man passed by, l! 
j jumped from my hiding place, held up inyj 
pistol, and told him to gi.ve me his mon-ey irj 
I he shot. He gave me his money; but I wasj 
soon found out and taken to jail. From | 
there I was ta-ken to tri-al, and now am [ 
condemned I to hang by a rope .round j;he 
neck till I am, dead. And it. is all to be 
traced, to this — 

' I stole a pin ! ' 

Here the good man left him to die. 

Now tell me, my child, what is it to steal ? 
What is it to rob ? 

If you have done wrong, do so no more. — 
Your sin will find you out. 



Knife — what I How many parts — handle, 
spring, blade. Of what made and for what used ' 



EASY READING. 

LITTLE ANN. 




Mot her," how can the flowers grow ? 

Said little Ann one day ; 
The garden is all over snow j 

When will it go away ? 

The sun, my love, will melt the snow, 
And warm the frozen ground ; 

But many a wintry wind will blow 
Before the flowers are found ' 

Irs a few months, my Ann will view 
The garden "now so white, 

With yellow cowslip, violet blue, 
And daffodil so bright. 



EASr READING. 

The birds will then, from every tree, 
Pour forth a song of praise ; 

Their little hearts will grateful be k 
And sweet will sound their lays. 

For God, who dwells above the sky, 
Made them, as well a3 you ; 

He gave them littl*; wings to fly, 
And made their mueic too. 

He gave my little girl her voice, 
To join in prayer and praise ; 

Then may she ever more rejoice 
To learn her Maker's ways ! 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 




On a fine morning in the fall of 1737, Mr. Washing- 
ton, having little George by the hand„.ca?ne to the door 
and asked my cousin and myself to walk with him to the 5 
orchard, promising to show us a fine sight. On arriving at 
the orchard, we were presented with a fine sight indeed. 
The whole earth as fajr as We could see, was strewed with, 
fruit : and yet the trees wore bending under the weight 
gssaaassi aa ■■■ - ■■•■■,.- .,,■.., ■•■ rr 



EASY READING. 

of apples, which hung in clusters, like grapes, and vuifily 
strove to hide their red cheeks behind the green leaves. 

"Now, George," 6aid bis father, "look here, my son ! 
don't you remember, whore this good cousin of yours brought- 
you that fine large apple, last spring, how hardly I could 
prevail on yon to divide with your brothers and sisters; 
though 1 promised you that if you would but do it, Gpd 
Almighty would give you plenty of apples, this fall ?" 

Poor George ould not say a Word ; but, hanging down 
his head, looked quite confused, while with his little naked 
toes he scratched in the soft ground. — "'Now look up, my 
son," continued his father, " and ace how richly th&t blessed 
God has made good my promise to yoKi. Wherever you 
turn your eyes, you see the trees loaded with fine fruit, many 
of tliem indeed breaking down, while the ground is covered 
with mellow apples, more than you could ever eat, my son, 
in all your life time.? 

George looked in silence on the wide wilderness of fruit; 
he marked the busy humming bees, and heard the gay 
notes of birds ; then lifting his eyes, filled with signing moist- 
ure, he said, softly, to his father, "Well, Pa, only forgive 
me this time, and see if I ever be so stingy any more.'-' 

When George Was about six years old. ho was made the 
wealthy master of a hatchet! Of which, like most boys, he 
was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about, 
chopping every thing that came in his way. 

One day in the garden, where he had often amused him 1 
self hacking his mother's pea-bushc9, he unluckily tried the 
edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young Eng- 
lish cherry tree, which he barked so. terribly, that I don't 
believe the tree ever got the better of it. ) 

The nefctf morning, the old gentleman, rinding out what 
"had befallen his favourite tree, came into the house, and asked 
for the author of the mischief, declaring at the same time, 
that he Would not have taken fire guineas for the tree. s-j 

Nobody could tell him any thing about it. Presently 
George and his little hatchet made their" appearance. 
" George," said his father, "do you know who killed that 
beaufiiu! little cherry tree yonder in the garden \ n 

This was a tough question ; and George staggered under 
it for a moment ■; butqUickly recovered himself ; and look- 
ing at his father, with the sweet face of youth, brightened 
•with the charm of honesty, he brAvety cried out, " I can't 



LANGUAGE.- 
tell a lie, Taj you know S can't (ell a lie. I did it with rny 
little hatchet." 

" Run to my arms, my dearest boy," said his father ; 
."you have paid me for my. tree a thousand times; and I 
hope my son will always be hero enough to tell tho truth, 
let come what will come." 

LANGUAGE. 

Language is human speech, or :j set of articulate sounds, 
used by any nation or people- to convey their ideas to each 
other. 

Grammar is the ar.t of speaking and writing any language 
with propriety. 

Orthography is that part of grammar, which teaches the 
nature and power of letters, and the jiift method of spelling 
words. 

A letter is the first principle, or least part of a word. 

The letters*Gf a language are cailcd the alphabet, which 
in the English language are twenty-six iri ri umber. -"** 

Letters are divided into vowels and consonants. 

A vpwel is a letter, which can be perfectly sounded by 
itself; or without moving the parts of the m»uth. 

Aconumiaii is a letter, which cannot be perfectly sound- 
ed by itself; but, joined with a vowel, forms an articulate or 
significant sound. 

The vowels are a, e, i, o, 11, and sometimes, w arid y. 

Wand y are consonants, when they begin a word or sylla- 
ble ; but in every other situation they' are called vowels. 

A diphthong is the union of two vowels in one syllabic ; 
as ca m'beat, on in sound.. 

A triphthong is the union of three vowels in one syllable ; 
as; icu in adieu; lick. 

A si/l/able is a sound, either, simple or compounded, pro- 
nounced by a single impulse or effort 6f the voice, and con- 
stituting a word or part of a word ; as plan* man-fid. > 

Words are articulate, or significant sounds, which are 
used to express our ideas. 

A word of one syllable is called a mon'osyllable, 

A word of tiro syllables, n dissyllable^ 

A word of three syllables, a. tris'yUabk y 

* A word 'of four or more syllables, a pol'ysyUcbk. 



